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DUPLEIX 


AND  THE 


EMPIEE  of  INDIA 


BY 

SIDNEY  J.  OWEN. 


NEW  YORK : 

JOHN  3.  ALDEN,  Publisher. 

1887. 


'*  V'  :  ••  • 


^ 


^>- 


DUPLEIX 

AND 

The  Indian  Empire. 


The  military  adventurer  has,  in  all  ages, 
been  a  prominent  figure  in  India;  and  his- 
tory of  that  country  derives  much  of  its 
interest  from  the  remarkable  characters  and 
brilliant  achievements  of  such  men,  and 
their  commanding  influence  on  the  fortunes 
of  a  community  discordant  in  race,  national 
sentiment,  and  religion,  weak  in  political  in- 
stitutions and  public  spii;it,  and  hence  pecul- 
iarly liable  to  revolutions  wrought  out  by  the 
sword.  Thus,  without  citing  earlier  instances, 
the  Mogul  empire  was  founded,  undermined 
and  laid  low  by  three  representatives  of  this 
class,  each  well  suited  to  his  mission,  and  all 
memorable  for  the  wild  romance  of  their  ex- 
ploits. The  quick-witted,  large-hearted,  and 
enlightened  Baber,  a  conqueror  in  his  boy- 
hood, youthful  in  spirit  to  the  end,  a  knight- 
errant  ever,  was  happily  adapted  to  conciliate 
his  Indian  subjects;  and  to  stamp  upon  the 
government  of  his  new  dominions  that  blended 


437723 


'1  IXUPLEIX  AND 

character  of  energy  and  tolerance,  which  it 
long  retained  under  his  descendants,  and 
which  contributed  so  much  to  its  stability. 
But  when  the  gloomy  and  persecuting  Au- 
rungzib  laid  his  hand  heavily  on  the  Hindoos, 
Sivajj  arose  as  their  deliverer  and  avenger: 
his  subtlety,  political  ability,  skill  in  irregular 
warfare,  religious  zeal,  and  national  spirit, 
made  him  irrepressible,  and  the  Hindoo  re- 
action, initiated  by  him,  irresistible.  Sapi)ed 
by  the  Mahrattas,  the  tottering  empire  was 
prostrated  by  Nadir  Shah.  This  gi'im,  in- 
flexible, and  able  soldier,  who  freed  Persia 
from  a  foreign  yoke  only  to  usurp  the 
throne,  enforce  a  change  of  religion,  play  the 
tyrant,  and  perpetrate  frantic  cruelties  which 
cost  him  his  life,  was  an  appropriate  instru- 
ment for  the  repetition  of  Timour's  work  of 
destruction;  and  Nadir's  indiscriminate  mas- 
sacre at  Delhi  recalled  the  dread  memory  of 
"the  Scourge  of  God." 

The  fortunes  of  the  Anglo-Indian  empire 
have  been  not  less  notably  affected  by  the 
same  class  of  men,  though  hitherto  the  gen- 
eral results  of  their  operations  have  been 
favorable  to  it.  The  enterprise  of  adventurers 
called  it  into  being,  precipitated  its  develop- 
ment, and  gave  occasion  to  each  great  step 


THE   INDIAN  EMPIRE.  5 

in  its  advance.  Dupleix's  policy  forced  the 
Madras  government  to  take  up  Mahomed 
All's  cause;  Clive,  the  '* heaven-born  gen- 
eral/' sustained  it;  and  the  relation  thus  es- 
tablished inevitably  ended  in  the  British  an- 
nexation of  the  Carnatic.  Anaverdy  Khan 
made  himself  master  of  the  Bengal  provinces; 
and  though  he  refused  to  quarrel  with  the 
English,  his  fatuous  partiality  for  Surajah 
Dowlah  brought  about  the  crisis  which  he 
deprecated.  Plassey  was  the  contre-coup  of 
the  attack  on  Calcutta.  The  rise  of  Hyder, 
and  the  close  alliance  of  his  house  with  the 
French,  led  eventually  to  the  British  conquest 
of  Mysore.  De  Boigne  made  Mahadajee 
Sindia  predominant  at  D.  llii,  and  over  a  great 
part  of  Hindoslan,  though  both  he  and  his 
patron  were  careful  to  keep  on  good  terms 
with  the  English.  But  when  another  soldier 
of  fortune,  Ameer  Khan,  incited  Jeswunt 
Roa  Holka",  an  adventurer  like  himself,  to 
march  on  Poona,  the  defeated  Peishwa  fled 
to  Bombay,  and  concluded  the  treaty  of  Bas- 
sein.  This  Mahadajee's  successor,  proud  of 
the  position  won  for  him  by  De  Boigne,  and 
relying  on  the  powerful  army  which  the 
Savoyard  had  organized,  thought  proper  to 
oppugn;  and  the  triumphant  English  mulcted 


0  DUPLEIX  AND 

him  of  the  so-called  north-west  provinces. 
In  the  ebb  tide  of  British  policy,  after  Welles- 
ley's  departure,  Ameer  Khan  prepared  the 
way  for  new  annexations,  both  by  exhibiting 
in  his  own  licentious  proceedings  the  intoler- 
able evils  attending  non-intervention,  and  by 
stimulating  the  growth  of  a  jet  more  debased 
type  of  adventurers,  the  Pindaris,  for  whose 
suppression  forces  were  assembled  by  Lord 
Hastings.  This  circumstance  hastened  the 
intriguing  and  suspicious  Peishwa's  explo- 
sion; and  his  defeat,  surrender,  and  deposition 
transferred  his  dominions  to  the  company. 
In  Wellesley's  days,  an  Irish  sailor,  George 
Thomas,  had  made  himself  independent  on 
the  borders  of  the  Indian  desert;  had  played  a 
masterful  part  in  the  Cis-Sutlej  Sikh  country; 
and  had  projected  the  conquest  of  the  Punjab 
and  of  Sinde.  He  was  cut  off  before  he  could 
attempt  either  object ;  and  Runjit  Singh 
united  and  disciplined  the  northern  Sikhs, 
and  maintained  a  dubious  faith  with  the  Eng- 
lish. But  the  proud  rnd  adventurous  spirit 
which  he  had  strengthened  in  his  army  im- 
pelled it,  on  his  death,  to  cross  the  Sikh  Ru- 
bicon ;  and  the  Punjab  soon  became  British 
territory.  It  must  be  added  that  one  view  of  the 
conquest  of  Sinde  would  represent  Sir  Charles 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  7 

Napier  as  a  predetermined  military  adventurer. 
Of  the  names  we  have  mentioned,  some  are 
absolutely  unknown,  others  little  more  than 
names,  to  most  Englishmen.  But  of  Du- 
pleix's  ambition,  vanity,  sudden  elevation, 
equally  sudden  reverses,  Avho  has  not  read  in 
the  fascinating  pages  of  Macaulay?  Yet,  as 
Mr.  Justice  Stephen  has  lately  shown,  Mac- 
aulay is  an  unsafe  guide  to  truth  in  Indian 
history.  And  there  is  special  ground  for  dis- 
trusting his  account  of  dive's  great  rival. 
His  essay  was  written  a  pi'opos  of  Sir  John 
Malcolm's  Life  of  Clive.  But  Malcolm  con- 
tributes no  original  information  on  Dupleix 
and  his  proceedings.  He  dispatches  in  a  few^ 
lines,  in  accordance  with  Orme's  narrative,  the 
story  of  the  surrender  of  Madras,  and  Du- 
pleix's  breach  of  the  capitulation,  while  he  fills 
Iwenty-four  pages,  describing  Olive's  defence 
of  Arcot,  with  a  quotation  from  Orme.  That 
writer  is  evidently  both  his  authority  and 
Macaulay 's  at  this  period.  But  Orme,  ad- 
mirable historian  as  he  is  in  general,  was 
imperfectly  acquainted  with  Dupleix,  and 
much  prejudiced  against  him.  As  a  personal 
friend  of  Clive,  who  broke  his  parole  on  the 
faith  of  Labourdonnais's  version  of  the  occa- 
sion and  merits  of  his  quarrel  with  Dupleix, 


8  DUPLEIX  AND 

Orme  would  be  inclined  to  misjudge  the 
French  governor-general  from  the  outset;  and 
Dupleix's  later  conduct  did  not  tend  to  re- 
move the  impression  of  perfidy,  usurped  au- 
thority, and  extreme  arrogance  thus  associated 
with  his  name.  Hence  he  became  in  Orme's 
eyes,  in  spite  of  his  ability  and  perseverance, 
both  odious  and  contemptible.  It  must  be 
remembered  also  that,  while  Labourdonnais 
was  indefatigable  in  circulating  his  own  story, 
Dupleix's  lips  were  sealed  by  authority,  when 
he  undertook  to  vindicate  his  career,  and 
press  his  claims  on  the  French  East  India 
Company.     Thus  he  says: 

he  eieur  Diipleix.respecte  trop  les  ordres  du  minis- 
tere  et  ceux  de  la  compagnie  pour  oser  publier  ici  ce 
qu'il  lui  a€t€  enjoint  d'enseveUrdans  leplus  profond 
secret,  et,  quelqu  'int^ret  qu'il  puisse  avoir  de  justifier 
une  conduite  qu'il  nMgnore  pas  que  beaucoup  de  per- 
PonncB  ont  condamnee,  ce  motif,  tout  puissant  quMl 
est,  cedera  toujours  h  la  loi  du  devoir. 

Thus  Dupleix  continued  to  be  misunder- 
stood and  underrated;  and  Macaulay,  by  a 
few  vigorous  and  confident  strokes,  from  an 
unfavorable  portrait  produced  a  caricature  of, 
the  real  man.  An  anonymous  writer  in  the 
defunct  National  Henew  (October,  1862)  first. 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  9 

as  far  as  we  are  aware,  explained  the  true 
state  of  the  case  relative  to  Madras  and  its 
treatment  by  the  rival  French  officers;  and 
later  still  Colonel  Malleson  in  his  History  of 
the  French  in  India  has  done  ample  justice  to 
Dupleix.  But  the  interest  of  the  subject  is 
by  no  means  exhausted.  Much  of  Dupleix's 
voluminous  correspondence  still  awaits  publi- 
cation. A.  recent  French  writer,  M.  Tibulle 
Hamont,  has  consulted  this,  and  based  upon 
it  a  detailed  and  enthusiastic  biography,  in- 
terspersed wdth  copious  extracts  from  the 
letters,  which  throw  a  new  and  vivid  light  on 
the  character  and  conduct  of  the  brilliant 
adventurer. 

M.  Hamont  is  not  free  from  the  lues  Bos- 
iteUiana;  and  we  are  often  quite  unable  to 
sympathize  with  his  reflections,  or  to  admit 
the  force  of  his  reasoning  and  the  soundness 
of  his  conclusions.  But  his  contribution  to 
the  knowledge  of  his  hero's  personality  seems 
to  us  a  really  valuable  one;  and  with  the  ad- 
vantage of  this  fresh  illustration  we  propose 
to  give  a  short  outline  of  the  critical  passages 
in  Dupleix's  career,  and  to  attempt  to  appre- 
ciate fairly  his  character,  designs,  and  achieve- 
ments. Whatever  his  faults,  he  certainly  de- 
serves a  better  fate  than  to  be  held  up  to  scorn 


10  DUPLEIX  AND 

as  a  clever,  but  vain-glorious  and  detected 
charlatan. 
Francois  Joseph  Dupleix  was  bom  on  the 
^  first  day  of  the  year  1697,  at  Landrecies.  His 
father  was  a  farmer-general  of  taxes,  appar- 
ently a  narr^w -minded  and  austere  money- 
maker, and  a  stern  despot  in  the  family 
circle,  whose  constant  aim  was  to  make  his 
son  a  thorough,  but  a  mere,  man  of  business, 
rigidly  proscribing  all  higher  culture,  and 
especially  all  scope  for  the  imagination.  But 
the  exclusive  side  of  this  policy  defeated 
itself.  As  so  often  happens  in  similar  cases, 
tlie  forbidden  fruit  was  eagerly  snatched  by 
the  boy,  who  was  of  a  dreamy  and  enthusi- 
astic temperament ;  and  he  soon  reveled  in 
the  world  of  ideas,  and  devoted  himself  to 
studies  very  remote  from  bookkeeping,  in- 
cluding that  of  music,  which  throughout  his 
career  was  his  solace,  and  in  some  sense  his 
Inspirer.  He  combined  with  a  love  of  the 
fine  arts  a  taste  for  the  severer  studies  of 
mathematics  and  fortification.  His  father 
was  naturally  much  provoked:  Passe  encore 
four  les  mathematiqueSy  he  exclaimed  indig- 
nantly, mais  la  fortification  et  le  reste!  Such 
perversity  required  sharp  discipline;  and  in 
1715,  that  is  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  the  youth 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  11 

was  sent  to  sea  on  board  of  an  East -India- 
man.  From  his  voyages  lie  returned  with 
much  information,  and  what  the  domestic 
oracle  considered  sound  ideas  on  trade  and 
maritime  affairs. 

Being  a  large  shareholder  in  the  French 
East  India  Company,  the  elder  Dupleix,  in 
1720,  procured  for  his  son  a  seat  in  the  Coun- 
cil at  Pondicherry,  with  the  then  almost 
nominal  and  ill-paid,  but  to  Dupleix  very 
suggestive,  post  of  commissaire  cles  guerres. 
Lenoir,  the  governor  of  Pondicherry,  was  a 
shrewd  and  kindly  man,  well  versed  in  Indian 
politics:  he  quickly  discerned  the  capacity  of 
the  young  councilor,  and  employed  him  in 
a  manner  well  adapted  to  prepare  him  for  his 
enterprising  career.  Under  Lenoir's  tuition, 
Dupleix  explored  the  archives  of  the  com- 
pany, and  was  intrusted  with  the  drafting  of 
dispatches  to  France  and  the  native  powers. 

It  soon  appeared  that,  whatever  his  original 
tastes,  his  commercial  training  had  not  been 
thrown  away.  The  company's  commerce 
was  in  a  very  bad  state.  The  most  element- 
ary principles  of  political  economy  were  ig- 
nored by  the  professed  men  of  business;  and 
it  was  reserved  for  the  votary  of  the  muses  to 
work  out  a  salutary  reform  by  the  application 


\y 


12  DUPLEIX  AND 

of  those  principles.  The  commercial  agem», 
both  at  Pondicherry  and  in  Europe,  were  con- 
tent to  purchase  Indian  goods  with  French 
gold,  and  neglected  both  the.  introduction  of 
western  commodities  into  India,  and  a  similar 
traffic  with  the  outlying  regions  of  Asia. 
Hence  their  operations  were  comparatively 
feeble  and  intermittent,  and  their  profits  very 
small.  But  the  company's  servants  were  not 
forbidden  to  trade,  on  their  own  account, 
with  the  interior  of  the  country.  Dupleix 
availed  himself  of  this  opening ;  obtained 
much  money  in  return  for  the  European 
goods  in  which  he  speculated;  and  induced 
his  father  to  engage  in  an  enterprise  that 
i  gave  him  the  double  satisfaction  of  receiving 
a  good  dividend,  and  feeling  that  his  son  was, 
on  one  side  of  his  character  at  least,  a  chip  of 
the  old  block. 

For  several  j^ears  Dupleix  continued  thus 
to  amass  wealth,  and  made  comprehensive 
studies  of  the  political  situation  ;  though  it 
may  be  doubted  wiiether,  as  M.  Ilamont 
asserts,  he  was  already  dreaming  of  the  con- 
quest of  India;  the  rather,  as  no  passage  is 
cited  in  proo  f  of  this  precocious  reverie.  In 
1730  he  was  appointed  governor  of  Chander- 
^  nagore  in  Bengal.     This  settlement  was  in  a 


THE  INDIAN  E^fPTTlE.  13 

more  dilapidated  condition  than  Pondicherry. 
But  it  was  a  sphere  that  suited  him;  and  his 
Influence  was  soon  marvelously  displayed  in 
the  development  of  its  commercial  activity. 
The  place  was  well  situated  both  for  internal 
and  foreign  traffic ;  and  the  example  of  the 
new  governor's  profitable  enterprise  in  pur- 
chasing vessels  and  goods,  and  pushing  them 
seaward  to  remote  Asiatic  ports,  and  along 
the  great  river  highways  far  up  the  country, 
stimulated  the  settlers,  whom  he  freely  assisted 
with  his  capital,  and  so  effectually,  that  at 
the  end  of  ten  years  French  wares  supplied 
many  of  the  great  cities  of  Hindostan,  and 
were  even  sent  up  to  Thibet;  Chandernagore 
mustered,  instead  of  five,  not  less  than  seventy- 
two  ships  engaged  in  the  carrying  trade  with 
western  India,  Arabia,  and  China;  and  the 
increasing  opulence  of  the  place  is  said  to 
have  been  attested  by  the  construction  of  ten 
thousand  new  houses. 

In  1741  the  governor  married  a  remarliable 
woman,  whose  influence  on  his  career  was 
destined  to  be  very  great.  She  was  a  widow: 
her  father  was  French,  her  mother  an  Indo- 
Portuguese,  and  a  scion  of  the  historic  house 
of  De  Castro.  Madame  Dupleix  was  born 
and  educated  in  India.     Her  manners  are  said 


14  DUPLEIX  AND 

to  have  been  fascinating :  lier  strength  of 
character  and  intelh'gence,  her  diplomatic  tact, 
and  her  proficiency  in  native  languages,  were 
notable,  and  invaluable  to  her  husband,  whose 
political  designs,  if  not  suggested,  were 
warmly  embraced  and  actively  promoted  by 
her.  A  mutual  and  deep  devotion,  in  weal 
and  woe,  seemed  to  have  united  the  brilliant 
Frenchman  and  the  accomplished  Eurasian, 
not  unlike  that  which  existed  later  between 
"Warren  Hastings  and  Ms  foreign  wife. 
The  year  of  his  marriage  was  also  that  of 
^N^upleix's  appointment  as  governor  of  Pondi- 
cherry,  including  the  supreme  control  over 
the  other  French  possessions,  Chandernagore 
in  Bengal,  Karikal  on  the  Coromandel,  and 
Mahe  on  the  Malabar  coast.  He  was  pro- 
vided with  a  council  of  five  members,  who 
appear  to  have  been  throughout  very  sub- 
missive to  his  ascendency.  The  compaay 
nominated — and  could  recall — all  these  offi- 
cers, though  the  royal  sanction  ratified  the 
appointment,  and  supplemented  it  with  a 
royal  commission,  and  justice  ran  in  the  king's 
name.  The  powders  of  the  governor-general 
were  very  extensive,  but  w^ere  conveyed  in 
terms  perhaps  too  indefinite.  Each  of  the 
settlements  had  its  governor  and  council, who 


THE  INDIAN  EVPIKE.  15 

were  bound  to  obey  the  orders  of  the  ruler  of 
Pondicherry.  This  is  not  the  occasion  for 
tracing,  even  in  outline,  the  previous  history 
of  the  French  East  India  Company.  But  it 
may  be  mentioned  that  it  had  already  exhib- 
ited tendencies  strictly  analogous  to  those 
with  which  the  student  of  our  own  company's 
annals  is  familiar.  .  The  directors  limited  their 
aspirations  to  a  large  dividend,  and  were  most 
anxious  to  ''keep  a  calm  sough,"  and  avoid 
any  proceedings  which  might  compromise 
their  proper  object,  by  involving  them  in 
local  troubles.  On  the  other  hand,  some  of 
their  governors  had  attained  a  dim  conscious- 
ness that  while  their  trade  was  by  no  means 
flourishing,  it  might  prosper  more  if  they 
secured  a  stronger  footing  in  the  country, 
and  more  commanding  influence  over  the 
natives.  Thus  M.  Dumas  had  already  shown 
great  resolution  in  resisting  and  defying 
Mahratta  dictation.  After  Law's  bubble  had 
burst,  the  French  government,  and  the 
French  people  generally,  took  little  interest  in 
Indian  affairs. 

Since  the  fusion  of  the  rival  companies  iu 
England  our  countrymen  in  the  east  had 
subsided  into  quiet  trajders,  and  had  been 
much  abler  and  more  successful  in  their  call- 


16  DUPLEIX  AND 

ing  than  their  natural  enemies  the  French. 
This  once  favorite  plirase  we  use  advisedly; 
for  the  petty  jealousy  of  the  commercial  spirit, 
the  close  neighborhood  of  the  French  and 
English  settlements  on  the  Coromandel  coast, 
the  remoteness  of  the  overruling  authorities  in 
Europe,  and  the  circumstances  that  each  set- 
tlement was  fortified,  and  possessed  the  nu- 
cleus of  an  army,  all  tended  to  aggravate  na- 
tional antipathies,  and  to  provoke  collisions, 
which  would  have  been  more  frequent  but 
for  the  surviving  respect  for  the  native  pow- 
ers. If  the  emperor  was  a  phantom,  he  was 
still  an  august  phantom,  and  inspired 
fear.  If  the  great  subahdar  of  the  Dek- 
kan,  Nizam  ul  Mulk,  was  afar  off,  he  was 
well  known  to  have  long  arms.  And  the 
nawab  of  the  Carnatic  at  the  time  was  not 
only  his  titular  deputy,  but  had  been  actually 
selected  and  supported  by  him ;  and  was 
moreover  a  man  of  character  and  vigor,  with 
large  military  resources  at  his  disposal.  But 
Dupleix's  bold  spirit  w^as  not  to  be  thus  in 
timidated;  and  he  early  resolved  to  turn  the 
imperial  authority  to  his  own  account.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  the  practical  dis- 
memberment of  the  empire  was  alriiost  com- 
plete; that  the  viceroy  of  the  Dekkan,  or  India 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  17 

south  of  the  Nerbudda,  was  virtually  an  inde- 
pendeDt  sovereign,  though  the  great  Mahrat- 
ta  confederacy,  of  which  the  Peishwa  was 
becoming  the  acknowledged  head,  was  his 
constant  and  formidable  rival;  and  that  My- 
sore was  still  a  comparatively  insignificant 
state,  under  Hindoo  rule,  Hyder  Ali  being  a 
young  adventurer  in  the  service  of  Nunjiraj, 
the  dulway  or  regent  of  that  kingdom. 

Whatever  might  be  his  ulterior  designs, 
Dupleix's  immediate  attention  was  engrossed 
by  preparation  for  the  impending  war  be- 
tween his  countrymen  and  the  English,  arising 
out  of  the  disputed  Austrian  succession.  His 
first  step  was  characteristic.  Knowing  too 
well  the  feebleness  of  his  military  resources, 
and  the  precariousness  of  timely  aid  from  be- 
yond the  sea,  he  sought  to  st  engthen  his 
political  position  in  the  eyes  of  the  natives, 
which  might  be  not  less  useful  in  the  coming 
crisis  than  in  the  promotion  of  remoter 
schemes.  His  predecessor  Dumas  had  ob- 
tained from  the  emperor,  through  tlie  Mogul 
governor  of  the  Carnatic,  the  title  of  nawab 
for  himself  and  his  official  successors.  This 
title  Dupleix  now  assumed  with  nuich  pomp, 
impressive  to  a  native  mind,  ridiculous  in  the 
eyes  of  tlie  French  settlers,  unaware  of  the 


18  DUPLEIX  AND 

serious  object  of  the  ceremony  or  sceptical 
of  its  advantages.  He  tlien  repaired  to  Ben- 
gal, and  there  paraded  his  semi-barbaric  grand- 
eur, exchanging  visits  of  state  with  the  native 
governor  of  Hooglee,  and  exciting  the  same 
sensations  as  in  the  Carnatic.  Thus,  he  flat- 
tered himself,  he  was  regularly  enrolled  in 
the  official  hierarchy  of  tlie  empire,  lie  had, 
so  to  speak,  taken  up  his  native  peerage. 

On  his  return  he  devoted  himself  to  the 
reduction  of  expenditure,  the  control  of  the 
civil  functionaries,  the  increase,  organization, 
and  training  of  his  little  army,  and  the  com- 
pletion of  the  defences  of  Pondicherry.  The 
chief  defect  of  the  works  was,  that  as  the 
citadel  commanded  the  strand,  there  was  no 
wall  or  ditch  on  that  side.  This  deficiency 
he  now  supplied;  and  of  this  he  was  very 
proud,  and  laid  great  stress  upon  it  in  his 
Memoire,  as  he  wfis  fully  entitled  to  do;  for 
it  was  a  great  and  costly  undertaking,  and  lie 
both  devised  it,  superintended  its  construction, 
and  paid  for  it  out  of  his  own  purse.  But  his 
labors  Vv^ere  rudely  interrupted.  On  18tli  Sep- 
tember, 1743,  he  received  most  discouraging 
and  embarrassing  or;^ers  from  his  employers. 
He  was  directed  to  retrench  the  expenditure 
by  one -half,  and  to  spend  no  more  at  present 


THE   INDIAN  EMPIRE.  19 

on  fortification,  although  the  same  dispatch 
apprised  him  that  war  was  ahnost  certain. 
To  obey  such  orders  would  have  been  fatal  to 
French  interests  in  India;  to  transgress  them 
might  be  perilous  to  himself.  In  this  cruel 
dilemma  he  chose  a  middle  course— as  before, 
at  his  own  cost.  He  had  already  done  his 
utmost  to  retrench  ordinary  expenditure,  and 
had  paid  off  most  of  the  debt  incurred  on 
military  preparation,  when  Pondicherry  had 
been,  a  few  years  before,  threatened  by  the 
Mahrattas.  He  now  advanced  out  of  his  own 
funds  500,000  livres,  one  half  of  which  he 
allotted  to  the  defences,  the  other  half  to  the 
freight  of  two  vessels,  which  he  dispatched 
with  a  justification  of  his  proceedings,  and 
an  urgent  petition  for  a  military  reinforce- 
ment and  the  aid  of  a  fleet 

After  a  tedious  delay  he  received  a  dis- 
heartening reply.  England  and  France  were 
now  at  war;  but  instead  of  sending  him  sol- 
diers, the  directors  recommended  him  to  con 
elude  a  neutrality  between  the  commercial 
settlements  of  the  hostile  nations.  In  case 
this  should  not  be  feasible,  it  was  added,  La- 
bourdonnais,  the  governor  of  the  Isles  of 
France  and  of  Bourbon,  had  been  ordered  to 
conduct    a    fleet   to   Pondicherry.      Dupleix 


20  DUPLETX  AND 

found,  as  he  feared,  that  Mr.  Morse,  the  gov- 
ernor of  Fort  St.  George,  would  not  consent 
to  stand  neutral :  Pondicherry  was  almost 
defenceless:  a  large  English  fleet  was  cruising 
in  the  eastern  seas;  and  the  arrival  of  La- 
bourdonnais  was  quite  uncertain.  In  this 
emergency  Dupleix's  previous  policy  stood 
him  in  good  stead.  Reminding  Anwarodeen, 
the  Nawab  of  the  Carnatic,  6f  the  long -stand 
ing  friendship  between  the  rulers  of  that 
province  and  the  French,  and  of  the  Mogul 
dignity  conferred  upon  M.  Dumas  and  his 
successors,  and  denouncing  Mr.  Morse's  tur- 
bulent disposition,  he  persuaded  the  Nawab 
to  forbid  an  attack  on  Pondicherry  by  the 
English ;  who  were  however  assured  that  if 
the  French  should  become  the  stronger  party 
a  similar  check  should  be  placed  upon  them. 
Our  countrymen  as  yet  stood  too  much  in 
awe  of  the  Mogul  power  to  disobc}'  such  a  man- 
date. Dupleix  meanwhile  had  dispatched  his 
single  vessel  with  a  pressing  request  that  La- 
bourdonnais  would  hasten  to  his  relief.  That 
remarkable  man  made  extraordinary  exertions 
to  replace  the  fleet  of  which  he  had  been  de- 
prived. He  detained,  re-equipped,  and  armed 
for  naval  service  every  merchant  ship  that 
put  in  at  the  islands ;  mustered  and  trained 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIKE.  21 

every  available  man  on  the  spot;  levied  an 
African  force;  displayed  wonderful  versatility 
in  organizing  every  department  of  the  arma- 
ment, and  in  restoring  its  efficiency  when 
impaired  by  a  hurricane  off  Madagascar ; 
fought  an  indecisive  action  with  Admiral 
Peyton  near  Negapatam ;  and,  the  English 
fleet  next  day  leaving  the  coast  clear,  made 
the  best  of  his  way  to  Pondicherry. 

We  now  approach  a  passage  in  Dupleix's 
history  which  has  been  strangely  misrepre- 
sented. Our  countrymen  at  the  time,  piqued 
at  the  loss  of  Madras,  blinded  ])y  national 
antipathy  and  personal  prejudice  against  their 
ambitious  and  indomitable  antagonist,  flat- 
tered by  the  blandishments  and  misled  by  the 
sophistry  of  Labourdonnais,  too  readily  ac- 
cepted his  statement  of  the  case;  even  Orme 
afterward  adopted  it ;  and  the  traditional 
legend  has  since  been  stereotyped  in  Macau- 
lay's  celebrated  essay  on  Clive. 

The  relations  between  the  two  distinguished 
men  were,  at  first,  most  cordial.  Dupleix's 
great  objects  were  the  defeat  of  the  English 
fleet,  and  the  capture  of  Madras.  Labour- 
donnais professed  strong  sympathy,  and  stated 
that  without  the  protection  of  a  fleet  Madras 
must  fall  easily.     Dupleix  reinforced  his  ves- 


22  DUPLEIX  AND 

sels  with  heavy  guns ;  and  by  address  and 
liberal  gifts  induced  the  nawab  to  withhold 
his  promised  protection  from  the  English, 
who  had  solicited  it  too  much  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  empty-handed.  But  Labourdon- 
nais  now  suggested  that,  on  taking  Madras, 
he  should  load  his  fleet  with  its  merchandise, 
and  restore  the  town  to  the  enemy,  on  pay- 
ment of  a  ransom.  Here  M,  Hamont  justly 
observes  :  Cette  maniere  d'eiuisager  la  question 
sentait  plus  le  corsaire  que  Vliomme  cVetat.  Du- 
pleix  naturally  objected  to  this  strange  pro- 
posal, made  at  a  time  w^hen  England  and 
France  were  at  war,  and  so  soon  after  the  gov- 
ernor of  Madras  had  refuiSed  to  agree  that  the 
commercial  settlements  in  India  should  remain 
neutral  during  the  European  contest.  With- 
out committing  himself  to  a  premature  opin 
ion  as  to  the  destiny  of  the  town,  he  argued 
that  it  would  be  expedient,  at  any  rate,  to 
raze  its  fortifications. 

From  this  time'Labourdonnais  seemed  a 
changed  man.  Accustomed  to  command,  he 
could  not  brook  an  equal,  much  less  a  supe- 
rior ;  and  he  resented  instructions,  however 
gently  communicated  and  reasonably  justified. 
He  grew  sullen,  captious,  hesitating.  He 
appeared  more  inclined  to  dispute  than  to  act. 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  23 

At  length,  the  English  fleet  having  fled  dis- 
gracefully before  him,  he  attacked  Madras 
with  his  usual  vigor,  and  it  fell  almost  with- 
out resistance.  On  leaving  Pondicherry,  he 
had  again  harped  on  the  restitution  project, 
and  had  been  answered  decisively.  Yet  he 
now  agreeed  to  a  conditional  capitulation  in 
that  sense:  Siparracliat  ou  ran^on  on  remet 
la  xillc  a  MM.  les  Anglais,  etc.  Still  there 
was  no  positive  engagement  to  that  effect; 
though  reporting  that  the  capitulation  left 
him  free  to  choose  between  destroying  the 
town,  making  it  a  French  colony,  or  restor- 
ing it  on  ransom,  he  pronounced  in  favor  of 
the  third  course.  Dupleix  informed  him  that, 
to  prevent  the  Nawab  yielding  to  the  impor- 
tunity of  the  English,  he  had  been  obliged  to 
promise  that  the  city  should  be  given  up  to 
Anwarodeen,  though  he  apparently  intended 
first  to  destroy  the  fortifications.  To  this 
promised  cession  Labourdonnais  assented. 
And  the  Governor- General  in  the  interim 
made  the  victor  governor,  and  sent  a  council 
to  assist  him,  which  was  the  usual  plan  on  a 
new ,  acquisition  by  the  company.  But  this 
exercise  of  supreme  authority  Labourdonnais 
vehemently  resented,  and  now  announced  that 
he  had  concluded  a  treaty  for  the  ransom  of 


24  DUPLEIX  AND 

the  town.  It  is  clear  that,  apart  from  the 
promise  to  the  Nawab,  he  had  no  right  what- 
ever to  do  so.  Indeed,  he  virtually  admitted 
this  later.  But  in  vain  Dupleix  argued,  en- 
treated, appealed  to  the  better  nature  of  the 
stubborn  and  arrogant  sailor.  He  only 
changed  his  line  of  defence,  and  in  impudent 
disregard  of  facts  declared  himself  pledged  in 
honor  to  execute  the  treaty,  in  consequence 
of  a  promise  which  he  had  made  at  the  time 
of  the  surrender,  and  to  which  he  now  as- 
cribed his  easy  victory.  He  had  been  silent 
as  to  this  promise  at  the  time.  The  tone  of 
his  subsequent  letters  had  belied  it.  It  was 
not  embodied  in  the  capitulation.  And  it 
was  certain  tha*^^  the  place  had  been  incapable 
of  holding  out.  Yet  upon  this  alleged  secret 
compact  he  now  took  his  stand  resolutely, 
desperately.  How  is  his  conduct  to  be  ex- 
plained ?  Whatever  his  other  motives,  there 
is  too  go-^d  ground  for  suspecting,  as  was 
charged  against  him  later  in  France,  but 
could  not  be  proverl,  that  he  had  been  bought 
by  the  English,  who  preferred  afterward  to 
enlarge  on  Dupleix's  Punic  faith,  rather  than 
to  testify  against  the  inveterate  enemy  of 
their  great  foe. 

We  must  pass  over  the  violent  scenes  that 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  25 

ensued,  and  have  only  space  to  mention  that 
Labourdonnais  placed  in  arrest  some  of  the 
commissioners  sent  by  Dupleix  to  vindicate 
his  authority,  and  the  others  fled. 

The  Governor-General  was  helpless,  but  his 
mutinous  admiral  was  ill  at  ease,  and  tried  to 
gain  a  legitmate  standpoint  by  negotiating 
with  his  rival  for  a  postponement  of  the  res- 
toration. Dupleix,  reduced  to  extremity,  and 
probably  hoping  to  gain  time  until  the  ad- 
miral should  be  obliged  to  quit  the  coast, 
affected  readiness  to  treat  on  this  basis.  But, 
pending  the  negotiation,  a  violent  hurricane 
destroyed  half  of  Labourdonnais 's  ships,  and 
disabled  the  rest.  He  was  now  driven  to  re- 
sort to  an  audacious  diplomatic  coup  d'etat. 
He  produced  his  treaty,  asserted  that  it  had 
been  assented  to  at  Pondicherry,  executed  it 
himself,  procured  it  execution  by  the  Eng- 
lish— prisoners  of  w^ar  as  they  were  : — and 
dispatching  it  to  Dupleix,  called  upon  him  to 
abide  by  it.  He  soon  after  left  India  forever; 
and  thenceforth  maintained  that  he  had  acted 
loyally,  and  Dupleix  perfidiously  and  tyran- 
nically. Such  is  a  bare  but  exact  outline 
of  this  memorable  quarrel.  What  Dupleix 
might  have  been  tempted  to  do,  but  for  the 
hurricane,  is  one  thing.     What  he  actually 


26  DUPLEIX  AND 

did,  namely  repudiate  an  unauthorized  treaty, 
to  which  he  was  falsely  asserted  to  have 
agreed,  and  the  fundamental  principle  of  which 
he  had  from  the  first  opposed,  is  quite  another 
thing.  He  was  by  no  means  scrupulous. 
But  in  this  case  he  was  certainly  far  more 
sinned  against  than  sinning.  Much  doubt 
also  hangs  over  the  story  of  his  ill-treatment 
of  the  English  prisoners.  Whether  he  meant 
originally  to  fulfill  his  promise  of  giving  up 
Madras  to  the  Nawab  is  doubtful.  He  per- 
haps intended,  as  we  have  intimated,  to  dis- 
mantle it,  and  then  transfer  it  to  Anwarodeen. 
But  the  dispute  with  the  victor,  and  the  im- 
patience of  the  native  ruler,  prevented  this. 
And,  as  Dupleix  had  predicted,  the  long  and 
inevitable  delay  in  the  fulfilment  of  the 
promise,  turned  the  Nawab  into  an  enemy, 
and  an  ally  of  the  English. 

The  position  was  now  critical  in  the  ex- 
treme. The  French  fleet  had  disappeared ; 
the  English  fleet  was  intact,  and  threatened 
to  return.  The  Nawab  sent  a  considerable 
force  to  besiege  Madras.  To  defend  that  city 
and  Pondicherry  only  2,000  Europeans  and 
twice  that  number  of  sepoys  were  available. 
General  despondency  prevailed  at  the  seat  of 
government.     But  Dupleix  saw  clearly  that 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  27 

the  case  was  not  hopeless.  Some  time  must 
elapse  before  the  enemy  could  muster  and 
combine  their  armaments  for  a  general  attack. 
By  a  bold  and  sudden  blow  he  might  paralyze 
the  Nawab,  and  i>erhaps  force  him  again  to 
change  sides.  For  this  purpose  he  selected 
Paradis,  a  veteran  Swiss  officer,  Tvliose  capac- 
ity and  energy  he  well  knew,  and  detached 
him  with  200  Europeans  and  700  sepoys  to 
attack  the  camp  of  Maphuz  Khan,  the  Na- 
wab's  general,  and  eldest  son.  Meanwhile  he 
still  continued  to  negotiate  with  Anwarodeen. 
Epremenil,  the  governor  of  Madras,  wad 
ordered  to  remain  strictly  on  the  defensive. 
The  besiegers  at  first  confined  themselves  to  a 
close  blockade;  but  after  a  while  they  diverted 
the  river,  and  intercepted  a  spring  which 
supplied  the  place  with  fresh  water.  These 
measures  exasperated  and  alarmed  the  garri- 
son. Dupleix  saw  that  his  hour  was  come, 
and  insisted  on  a  sortie.  Four  hundred  men, 
with  two  field-pieces,  sallied  from  the  city, 
and  w^ere  charged  impetuously  by  a  host  of 
cavalry.  But  the  swift  fire  of  the  field-pieces 
amazed,  checked,  and  at  the  fourth  discharge 
sent  the  horsemen  to  the  right-about.  The 
French  sustained  absolutely  no  loss.  And 
Maphuz  Khan,  hearing  that  Paradis 's  reliev- 


^  DUl*LEtX  AKD 

ing  force  was  on  the  march,  retired  to  St. 
Thome,  and  encamped  on  the  south  bank  of 
a  tivCr,  COilfiding  in  its  protection,  and  keep- 
ing a  careless  look-out.  Dupleix  planned  an 
attack  on  this  exposed  position,  to  be  made 
simultaneously  by  the  Swiss  and  Epremenil. 
Paradis  suddenly  appeared  on  the  northern 
bank  of  the  river;  dashed  across  it,  sword  in 
hand,  at  the  head  of  his  men;  and  before  the 
enemy  could  do  much  execution  with  their 
slow  fire,  fell  upon  them  with  the  bayonet, 
and  drove  them  before  him  in  headlong  flight 
into  St.  Thome.  Thence  the  dense  mass  of 
fugitives  was  quickly  dislodged,  only  to  be 
again  assailed  by  the  garrison  of  Madras  :  in 
wild  panic  they  dispersed,  and  rushed  on- 
ward toward  Arcot. 

These  complete  and  startling  victories  are 
memorable  to  all  time.  They  dispelled  the 
awe  of  native  authority,  and  proclaimed  to  all 
the  world  that  the  European  was  the  destined 
successor  of  the  proud  Mogul  and  the  fiery 
Mahratta. 

Relieved  from  immediate  anxiety  on  ac- 
count of  the  Naw\ib,  Dupleix  next  attempted 
the  reduction  of  Fort  St.  David.  A  compara- 
tively strong  force  was  sent  against  it.  But 
this,  in  deference  to  professional  jealousy,  was 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  29 

commanded  by  a  very  inferior  officer.  M. 
Bury's  failure  was  as  signal  as  Paradis's  suc- 
cess. He  posted  his  men  in  a  walled  garden, 
near  the  fort,  and  on  the  south  side  of  the 
river.  A  sudden  alarm  in  the  night  occasioned 
a  panic;  and  instead  of  holding  their  own  in  so 
defensible  a  position,  the  troops  rushed  to  the 
river,  and  crossed  it  in  the  face  of  the  Nawab's 
arms.  But  for  the  field-pieces,  which  covered 
the  crossing,  a  rout  would  have  been  inevita- 
ble, and  the  loss  severe.  Bury  returned  in 
gloriously  to  Pondicherry.  But  the  glamour 
of  the  late  victories  was  not  dispelled  by  this 
reverse;  and  Dupleix's  calculations  were  justi- 
fied by  a  successful  negotiation  with  the 
Nawab,  who  agreed  to  make  peace,  to  aban- 
don the  English,  and  to  cancel  the  bargain  for 
the  surrender  of  Madras.  His  son,  Maphuz 
Khan,  visited  Pondicherry;  was  received  with 
great  honor,  and  loaded  with  presents,  which, 
as  the  governor  explained  to  his  masters,  were 
an  excellent  political  investment.  He  then 
planned  another  assault  on  Fort  St.  David, 
and  intrusted  it  to  Paradis.  But  just  as  the  gal- 
lant Swiss  had  reoccupied  the  walled  garden, 
and  was  on  the  point  of  attacking,  the  English 
fleet  was  signaled,  and  he  was  fain  to  retreat. 
Again  the  outlook  was  most  gloomy;  again 


80  DUPLEIX  AND 

the  civilians  counseled  surrender  to  inevit- 
able fate.  But  Admiral  GrifRn  confined  him- 
self to  his  own  element;  and  Dupleix,  having 
hastily  summoned  assistance  from  the  French 
islands,  was  cheered  by  the  arrival  of  some 
ships,  which  succeeded  in  reinforcing  Madras 
with  BOO  men;  but  then,  from  fear  of  the 
English  fleet,  retired  hastily.  And  tidings 
soon  after  arrived  from  Europe  which  might 
well  appal  even  the  Governor-General's  stout 
heart.  The  most  formidable  flotilla  which 
had  ever  appeared  in  the  eastern  waters  was 
on  its  way,  carrying  a  strong  body  of  troops, 
and  its  commander,  Admiral  Boscawen,  had 
it  in  charge  to  besiege  Pondicherry.  The  di- 
rectors exhorted  their  governor  to  make  a  good 
defence,  but  sent  him  no  help  of  any  kind. 
He  resolved  to  attack  Cuddalore,  which  lay 
over  against  Fort  St.  David,  immediately, 
hoping,  if  successful,  to  impede  the  landing  of 
the  enemy  there  and  to  intercept  their  com- 
munication with  the  fort,  or,  more  probably, 
to  make  Cuddalore  a  base  for  the  capture  of 
the  fort  itself.  But  Major  Lawrence,  who  had 
lately  arrived  from  England  as  commander  of 
all  the  company's  forces,  defeated  this  move- 
ment by  a  simple  stratagem.  During  the  day, 
and  in  sight  of  the  French,  he  removed  the 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIHE.  81 

guns  from  Cuddalore,  as  if  intent  only  on  de- 
fending Fort  St.  David.  But  at  nightfall  he 
quietly  replaced  them;  and  the  assailants  were 
warmly  received,  and  fled  back  in  confusion  to 
Pondicherry.  Dupleix  met  them  at  the  bar- 
riers, and  was  so  deeply  dejected  at  the  reverse, 
that  for  one  brief  moment  he  meditated  sui 
cide.  But  a  movement  of  his  horse  caused 
him  to  look  up.  The  sight  of  the  solid  ram- 
parts, surmounted  by  the  proud  banner  of 
France,  reassured  him.  And  he  resolved  to 
live,  and — if  die  he  must — to  die  in  the  defence 
of  his  post. 

At  length  the  enemy  appeared  in  over- 
whelming force,  but  not  until  the  plan  of  the 
defence  had  been  well  considered  and  ar- 
ranged. On  the  sea  side,  the  town  was  pro- 
tected by  Dupleix 's  new  wall  and  by  shoal 
water.  A  bound  hedge  of  prickly-pear  made 
a  bold  circuit  on  the  land  side;  and  the  ad- 
vance of  the  besiegers  to  the  Vaubanized  walls 
was  more  effectually  impeded  by  a  chain  of 
redoubts  to  the  north  and  west,  by  Ariancopan, 
a  fort  on  the  south-west,  and  by  an  inlet  of 
the  sea  or  river  of  the  same  name  to  the  south. 
Being  well  provided  with  artillery,  Dupleix 
hoped  to  cope  with,  and  even  overpower,  the 
enemy's  batteries ;    and  by  sorties  and  skir- 


32  DUPLEIX  AND 

mishes  to  harass  the  communications  between 
the  fleet  and  the  English  army,  capture  con- 
voys, and  obstruct  the  prosecution  of  the 
trenches.  Then  the  monsoon  might  befriend 
him. 

The  admiral  was  commander-in-chief  on 
land  as  well  as  at  sea,  a  fact  which  must  not 
be  forgotten  in  estimating  the  result.  The 
river  was  passed,  not  without  an  obstinate 
contest  and  serious  casualties  from  the  fire  of 
the  adjacent  fort,  a  rash  assault  upon  which 
,  was  repulsed;  and  much  valuable  time  was 
lost  in  besieging  and  afterward  repairing  it. 
It  was  stoutly  defended;  but  a  casual  explo- 
sion having  much  reduced  the  number  of  the 
garrison,  and  spread  panic  among  the  sur- 
vivors, this  important  position  was  evacuated. 
Thus  the  external  line  of  defence  was  turned, 
and  the  other  outworks  became  almost  useless. 
But  the  English  engineers  were  thoroughly  in- 
capable. By  their  advice,  Boscawen  opened 
his  batteries  at  a  distance  far  too  great  to  be 
of  any  avail;  and  on  pushing  the  trenches 
nearer,  the  ground  was  found  to  be  hopelessly 
swampy  and  impracticable.  Dupleix  ordered 
a  sally.  But  the  state  of  the  ground  and  other 
causes  retarded  the  advance;  and  the  English, 
well  prepared,  routed  the  assailants,  killing 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  33 

many  officers,  amoDg  them  Paradis.  Still,  in 
spite  of  this  serious  loss,  and  the  partial  de- 
molition of  the  bastion  which  Boscawen  had 
chosen  as  his  objective,  time  went  on,  and  the 
siege  made  little  progress.  The  superiority 
of  Dupleix's  fire  was  pronounced;  the  damage 
to  the  bastion  was  rapidly  repaired;  and  Ma- 
dame Dupleix's  secret  relations  with  our  native 
soldiers  are  said  to  have  supplied  information, 
which  caused  much  mischief  by  facilitating 
attacks  on  convoj^s. 

Foiled  on  land,  the  admiral  ordered  a  gen- 
eral bombardment  by  the  fleet.  This  lasted 
for  twelve  hours  consecutively.  Orme  says 
that  the  only  casualty  it  caused  was  the  death 
of  one  old  woman.  The  boisterous  challenge, 
being  found  so  ineffective,  presently  remained 
unanswered.  But  landward  the  French  bat- 
teries replied  vigorously,  and  overpowered 
those  opposed  to  them.  The  monsoon  was  at 
hand;  the  mortality  in  the  English  army  had 
been  great;  the  health  of  the  troops  was  fail- 
ing; and  it  was  high  time  for  the  fleet  to  seek 
safer  anchorage.  This  place  was  too  strong 
to  be  taken  by  a  coup  de  main.  Boscawen 
therefore  suddenly  broke  up  the  siege,  and  re- 
tired; leaving  to  his  antagonist  the  imperisha- 
ble honor  of  having,  with  a  very  small  force. 


34  DUPLEIX  AND 

and  by  his  own  engineering  skill,  baffled  the 
most  imposing  European  armament  that  had 
ever  been  engaged  in  Indian  warfare. 

Dupleix's  exultation  was,  of  course,  great; 
and  he  announced  his  triumph  far  and  wide  to 
the  native  potentates,  receiving  in  return  the 
florid  compliments  which  the  Oriental  is  ever 
Iteady  to  bestow  on  such  occasions.  The  peace 
of  Aix-la-Chapelle  soon  after  restored  Madras 
to  the  English,  and,  however  mortifying  in 
this  respect  to  the  French  Governor- General, 
left  him  free  to  prosecute  his  ambitious  enter- 
prises among  the  natives.  But  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  the  English  set  him  an  exam- 
ple by  an  armed  intervention  in  Tanjore, 
which  resulted  in  their  acquisition  of  Devicot- 
tah,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Coleroon. 

And  here  it  is  material  to  observe  that  it 
does  not  seem  very  clear  when  Dupleix  first 
conceived  the  idea  of  subjecting  the  "  country 
powers  "  to  French  ascendency  ;  nor  how  far 
he  was,  in  the  first  instance,  prepared  to  soar 
even  in  his  dreams  of  empire.  His  military 
and  diplomatic  success  in  dealing  with  An- 
warodeen  may  have  emboldened  him  to  con- 
sider the  Oriental  as  his  convenient  tool.  His 
triumph  over  Boscawen  not  only  elated  him 
at  the  moment,  but  would  be  apt  to  make  him 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  35 

miscalculate  the  force  of  English  opposition 
to  his  designs.  Chunda  Sahib's  overtures  so 
exactly  accorded  with  the  train  of  political  as- 
sociations already  raised  in  the  case  of  An- 
warodeen,  that  the  temptation  to  accept  them 
would  be  the  stronger,  especially  when  they 
included  an  offer  of  alliance  with  the  preten- 
der to  the  Dekkan  subahdary,  and  thus  prom- 
ised to  establish  French  influence  on  a  legiti- 
mate basis  over  the  greater  portion  of  India 
south  of  the  Nerbudda.  He  was  doubtless 
much  encouraged  by  the  political  hesitation 
of  the  English ;  and  the  more  so  as  he  prob- 
ably did  not  fully  appreciate  the  grounds  of 
that  hesitation,  and  attributed  it  too  much  to 
fear  of  his  arms,  and  too  little  to  the  convic- 
tion that  the  English  directors  would  be  slow 
to  sanction  even  defensive  operations  against 
his  latent  and  insidious  attack  upon  the  free- 
dom of  English  trade,  if  not  on  the  existence 
of  Englishmen  in  the  country.  But  when  he 
proceeded  to  action,  the  weak  side  of  his  pol- 
icy, whenever  matured,  disclosed  itself.  He 
had  not  overrated  his  influence  with  the  native, 
but  he  had  underrated  the  resistance  which  its 
exercise  was  to  elicit  from  the  European  ;  and 
having  forced  the  English,  in  self-defence, 
into  the  service  of  his  Indian  opponents,,  he 


36  DXJPLEIX  AND 

soon  found  that  he  must  battle  for  life  and 
death  with  our  countrymen,  who  slowly,  but 
surely,  taking  their  sides,  and  animated  by 
Olive's  spirit,  and  enlightened  by  his  genius, 
displayed  in  the  later  stages  of  the  contest  an 
energy  and  determination  equal  to  his  own. 

The  European  peace  left  Dupleix  in  a  favor- 
able position  for  entering  on  his  great  design. 
He  had  2,000  European  soldiers,  almost  double 
that  number  of  sepoys,  artillery  in  plenty  and 
of  good  quality,  several  competent  officers,  a 
strongly  fortified  capital,  improved  credit,  and 
the  high  and  well-earned  fame  of  his  late 
splendid  achievement.  And  the  opportunity 
which  he  coveted  soon  occurred.  Chunda 
Sahib,  son-in-law  of  Anwarodeen's  predeces- 
sor, had  in  old  days  been  on  good  terms  with 
the  French,  and  was  personally  known  to  the 
Governor -General.  But  he  had  long  languish- 
ed in  a  Mahratta  prison,  whence  Dupleix  now 
procured  his  release,  and  encouraged  him  to 
assert  his  right  to  the  Carnatic  succession. 
About  the  same  time  the  gi'cat  viceroy  of  the 
Dekkan,  Nizam  ul  Mulk,  died  ;  and  Mirzapha 
Jung,  a  son  of  his  daughter,  claimed,  by  his 
grandfather's  appointment,  to  succeed  him,  in 
supersession  of  Nazir  Jung,  the  Nizam's  second 
son,  the  eldest  being  permanently  employed 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  37 

at  Delhi.  Mirzapha  obtained  little  support  • 
he  was  defeated,  and  fled  southward.  But 
Chunda  Sahib,  an  able  soldier,  an  experienced 
politician,  and  a  man  of  vigorous  character, 
now  made  common  cause  with  him.  The  two 
pretenders  invaded  the  Carnatic ;  and,  being 
energetically  opposed  by  the  Nawab,  preferred 
a  joint  request  for  assistance  to  the  ruler  of 
Pondicherry.  Great  concessions  to  the  French 
were  offered ;  and  the  momentous  bargain 
was  soon  struck. 

The  French  contingent  consisted  of  400 
Europeans  and  1,200  sepoys,  with  six  field- 
pieces,  commanded  by  Count  D'Autheuil,  a 
sturdy  veteran,  but  of  no  great  capacity,  and 
afflicted  with  the  gout.  Dupleix  announced 
the  step  to  the  directors,  justifying  it  princi- 
pally on  the  ground  that  it  was  to  be  recom- 
pensed by  the  cession  to  the  company  of  Yil- 
lenore  and  a  district  around  that  town,  which 
would  yield  a  considerable  revenue.  Chunda 
Sahib  was  to  furnish  provisions,  transport, 
etc.,  and  the  troops  were  to  draw  pay,  as 
usual,  from  Pondicherry. 

The  allied  army  found  Anwarodeen  en- 
trenched in  a  very  strong  position.  The 
French  attacked  vehemently,  but  were  re- 
pulsed ;  a  second  attack,  led  by  D'Autheuil  in 


38  DUPLEIX  AND 

person,  also  failed,  and  be  was  disabled. 
Bussy,  a  young  officer  destined  to  become 
very  famous,  now  took  the  command,  and 
stormed  the  entrenchments.  Anwarodeen 
was  killed,  and  his  army  cut  up  and  dispersed. 
The  allies  entered  Arcot  in  triumph;  and  there 
Mirzapha  was  proclaimed  subahdar  of  the 
Dekkan,  and  appointed  Chunda  Sahib  Nawab 
of  the  Carnatic.  Then  they  marched  to  Pon- 
dicherry,  where  Dupleiz  gave  them  a  mag- 
nificent reception,  and  spared  no  pains  to  im- 
press them  by  the  assumption  of  viceregal 
state,  and  a  full  muster  of  his  formidable 
troops. 

With  military  insight  he  then  insisted  on 
the  immediate  reduction  of  Trichinopoly  and 
Gingee.  The  maritime  province,  besides  its 
intrinsic  importance,  was  an  indispensable 
base  for  operations  in  the  Dekkan.  The  late 
victory  had  left  the  Carnatic  without  a  ruler, 
and,  following  so  soon  after  the  successful  de- 
fence of  Pondicherry,  had  spread  a  general 
terror  of  the  French  arms.  The  English  as 
yet  made  no  sign  of  opposition  to  Bupleix^s 
bold  game  ;  indeed,  they  were  willing  to  recog- 
nize Chunda  Sahib's  title.  Nazir  Jung  was 
hovering  above  the  Ghauts,  and  his  threaten- 
ed approach  made  it  advisable  to  lose  no  time 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  39 

in  securing  the  military  occupation  of  the 
lower  country.  Gingee  was  a  very  strong 
fortress  in  the  interior  of  the  Carnatic.  Trich- 
inopoly,  in  the  basin  of  the  Cavery,  was 
strongly  fortified,  and  a  place  of  great  political 
importance  as  a  sort  of  second  capital  of  the 
Carnatic,  and  of  no  less  military  consequence 
with  a  view  to  assuring  the  fidelity  of  Tanjore, 
and  the  wilder  regions  further  to  the  south. 
It  was  also  a  barrier  toward  Mysore.  Ma- 
homed Ali,  a  younger  son  of  Anwarodeen, 
had  fled  thither,  and  seemed  disposed  to  make 
a  stand  as  claimant  of  the  nawabship.  But 
fear  of  the  English  checked  the  progress  of 
Mirzapha  and  Chunda  Sahib.  Till  Boscawen 
left  the  coast  they  dallied  at  xircot.  Then, 
having  received  from  Duplcix  a  lac  of  rupees, 
800  French  and  300  sepoys,  with  a  siege  train, 
under  M.  Duquesne,  they  began  their  march. 
But  instead  of  attacking  Trichinopoly  they 
entered  Tanjore,  bent  on  rifling  that  rich 
principality.  The  Rajah  was  a  Mahratta,  a 
collateral  descendant  of  Sivaji ;  and  he  cun- 
ningly kept  them  in  play  for  months,  until 
Dupleix's  patience  was  exhausted,  and  he  or- 
dered the  French  commander  to  storm  the 
capital.  An  attack  was  made  on  the  outworks 
and  upon  a  gate  of  the  city.    Then  the  Ilajah 


40  DUPLEIX  AND 

came  to  terms,  and  agreed  to  pay  a  large  con- 
tribution. But  by  tendering  obsolete  coins, 
and  plate  and  jewels  of  questionable  value,  he 
contrived  to  delay  the  settlement  until  his  ob- 
ject was  gained  ;  and  the  invaders  were  sud- 
denly appalled  by  the  tidings  that  Nazir  Jung, 
at  the  head  of  an  immense  army,  had  entered 
the  Carnatic.  The  English  also  had  begun, 
timidly  and  sparingly,  to  reinforce  Mahomed 
Ali  and  the  Tanjore  prince.  The  allied  chiefs 
broke  up  their  camp  and  retreated,  baffled, 
discredited,  and  dejected,  to  Pondicherry. 

Nazir,  of  course,  espoused  Mahomed  All's 
cause,  and  was  promptly  joined  by  an  Eng- 
lish contingent  under  Major  Lawrence,  a 
capable  and  experienced  officer.  The  Madras 
government,  at  this  time,  certainly  acted  rather 
from  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  than 
from  deliberate  policy.  Dupleix's  insinua- 
tion, we  may  add,  that  the  junction  of  this 
contingent  was  due  simply  to  heavy  bribes 
received  by  Lawrence  and  his  officers,  is 
gratuitous  and  absurd.  And  though  he  affect- 
ed to  laugh  at  the  impertinence  of  "two  lieu- 
tenants declaring  war  on  the  king  of  France,'* 
he  was  fully  alive  to  his  dangerous  position. 
The  forces  of  his  allies  did  not  exceed  8,000 
men;  his  own  small  army  might  be  outnum- 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIKE.  41 

bered  by  the  English;  while  Nazir's  host  was 
estimated  at  300,000.  But  he  hoped  that  fear 
would  restrain  the  natives,  and  political  con- 
siderations the  English,  from  attacking  Pon- 
dicherry;  and  he  relied  on  his  own  diplomatic 
ability  for  effecting  a  compromise,  or,  if 
Nazir  proved  intractable,  for  circumventing 
him.  Thus  he  boldly  arrayed  his  troops  out- 
side the  city,  and  engaged  in  negotiation. 
He  seems  to  have  thought  that  he  might  in- 
duce Nazir  to  confer  the  Carnatic  on  one  of 
his  allies  and  an  extensive  appanage  in  the 
Dekkan  on  the  other.  Thus,  could  he  detach 
Nizam  ul  Mulk's  son  from  the  English,  and 
make  him  his  friend,  his  own  influence  would 
be  paramount  in  southern  India. 

Meanwhile  he  advised  a  night  attack,  in  the 
hope  of  terrifying  Nazir,  and  bringing  him  to 
reason.  D'Autheuil  adopted  the  suggestion: 
Nazir  retreated  in  alarm  and  seemed  disposed 
to  come  to  terms ;  when  a  large  party  of 
French  officers,  whether  from  cupidity  and 
disappointment  at  finding  the  service  more 
arduous  and  less  lucrative  than  they  had  an- 
ticipated, or  from  actual  cowardice,  suddenly 
mutinied;  in  the  face  of  the  enemy  resigned 
their  commissions,  and  sneaked  off  to  Pondi- 
cherry,  where  Dupleix  met  the  dastards  at 


42  DUPLEIX  AND 

the  gate  an^  placed  them  in  strict  confinement. 
D'Autheuil  was  obliged  to  retreat,  and  fought 
his  way  back,  gallantly  covered  by  Chunda 
Sahib  and  his  cavalry  ;  but  Mirzapha  in  de- 
spair threw  himself  on  his  uncle's  mercy,  and 
contrary  to  promise  was  imprisoned  and  fet- 
tered. 

This  catastrophe  for  a  time  prostrated  Du- 
pleix.  But  the  strains  of  his  harp  are  said  to 
have  soothed  him;  and  his  wife's  tidings  that 
Mirzapha  was  still  alive  and  that  his  impris- 
onment was  much  resented  by  several  of  Na- 
zir's  principal  supporters,  roused  him  to  re- 
newed exertion.  He  resolved  to  maintain  an 
unflinching  attitude,  to  demand  the  same 
terms  as  before,  to  recognize  Nazir  as  siij^ahdar, 
but  to  insist  on  his  releasing  his  nephew  and 
making  either  him  or  Churda  Sahib  Nawab  of 
the  Camatic  with  the  appanage  of  Adoni  for 
the  other.  And  through  his  agents  and  in  a 
letter  to  Nazir,  he  appealed  to  every  motive 
that  he  thought  likely  to  influence  the  prince; 
promising,  in  case  the  English  contingent 
were  dismissed,  or  retired,  to  contrib  tc  double 
or  even  treble  the  number  of  French  soWiers 
for  the  subahdar's  service.  Tlie  negotiation 
lingered;  then  Dupleix  broke  it  off,  and  or- 
dered another  attack  on  Nazir's  camp,  who 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  43 

thereupon  retreated  in  unseemly  haste  to 
Arcot;  and  Lawrence,  finding  him  impracti- 
cable, led  his  men  back  to  Fort  St.  David. 

Dupleix  employed  the  respite  thus  gained 
partly  in  secret  attempts  to  undermine  the 
fidelity  of  Nazir's  adherents,  partly  in  bold 
operations  against  Mahomed  Ali,  who  was 
encamped  on  the  banks  of  the  river  near  Fort 
St.  David.  A  French  force  under  D'Autheiiil 
suddenly  occupied  the  pagoda  of  Trivadi, 
which  in  such  hands  was  equivalent  to  a 
strong  fortress  ;  and  an  attempt  to  recover  it 
made  by  Mahomed  Ali,  assisted  by  the  Eng- 
lish and  a  large  detachment  of  Nazir's  troops, 
was  repulsed.  Then,  as  before,  the  English 
quarreled  with  their  employer,  and  left  him. 
Dupleix  largely  reinforced  D'Authueil,  and 
ordered  him  to  attack  Mahomed  Ali'«  army, 
which  was  routed  with  great  slaughter,  and 
with  hardly  any  loss  to  the  French.  Nazir 
took  little  heed,  and  amused  himself  with 
hunting  and  less  respectable  pleasures. 

Circumstances  now  favored  the  move  which 
Dupleix  had  long  contemplated,  the  acquisi- 
tion of  Gingee.  Bussy  spontaneously  submitted 
to  him  a  plan  of  attack,  which  ^vas  approved, 
and  its  exec^ition  intrusted  to  the  projector. 
From  the  plain  shot  up  a  massive  eminence, 


44  DUPLEIX  AND 

on  which  was  the  pettah,  or  town,  its  walls 
following  the  irregularities  of  the  hill.  The 
summit  broke  into  three  peaks,  each  sur- 
mounted by  a  separate  citadel.  Tiie  whole 
was  strongly  garrisoned,  well  supplied  with 
artillery,  and  well  provisioned,  and  was  be- 
lieved by  the  natives  to  be  impregnable.  But 
Bussy  knew  his  business,  and  was  no  carpet 
knight .  The  WTCck  of  Mahomed  All's  army 
had  here  found  refuge,  and  thus  sheltered 
might  have  baffled  the  young  commander. 
But,  with  incredible  folly,  these  already  beaten 
troops  were  led  out  to  battle  in  the  plain  below; 
were,  of  course,  again  routed,  and  pursued  up 
the  hill ;  and  the  victors  nearly  succeeded  in 
entering  the  town  along  with  them.  One  of 
the  gates  was  blown  open;  and  after  an  ob- 
stinate Contest  in  the  streets,  the  town  was 
won  toward  nightfall.  No  time  was  lost  in 
assailing  the  citadels.  Bussy  formed  his  men 
n  three  columns,  himself  leading  the  attack 
on  the  principal  work;  and,  in  spite  of  the 
acclivity,  of  the  strong  defences,  and  of  a 
murderous  fire,  before  sunrise  the  French  flag 
waved  over  the  three  crests  of  Gingee  the  im- 
pregnable. 

D'Autheuil  had  come  up  to  Bussy 's  support 
in  the  crisis  of  the  batttle,  and  Dupleix  urged 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  45 

him  to  advance  at  once  on  Arcot,  where  Nazir, 
loitering  away  his  time  in  pleasure,  quarrel- 
ing with  his  nobles,  becoming  every  day  more 
unpopular,  and  amazed  at  the  rapid  opera- 
tions of  the  French,  offered  a  tempting  prey. 
But  the  monsoon  was  raging  in  its  full  fury  ; 
the  country  was  almost  impassable ;  D'Au- 
theuil  was  old,  gouty,  and  unenterprising;  and 
he  halted,  deaf  to  Dupleix's  reiterated  appeals 
— de  faire  Vimpossihle,  ei  d'aller  de  Vavant. 
Neither  yet  knew  that  Nazir  was  already 
seeking  an  accommodation.  He  betrayed  his 
fears  by  demanding  a  suspension  of  arms, 
and  of  B'Autheuil's  march  on  Arcot.  This 
Dupleix  refused,  and  insisted  haughtily  on 
his  previous  terms.  But  D'Autheuirs  halt 
lulled  the  envoys  and  their  master  into  fatal 
security,  and  encouraged  them  to  protract 
the  negotiation. 

Meanwhile  the  disaffected  nawabs  of  Canoul, 
Cudapah  and  Savanore  instigated  the  French 
governor  to  order  an  attack  on  the  subahdar's 
camp,  promising  to  cooperate,  and,  if  neces- 
sary, to  secure  his  person.  All  they  asked  for 
themselves  was  a  French  flag,  the  hoisting  of 
which  would  prevent  a  collision  between  their 
own  troops  and  the  assailants.  Dupleix  read- 
ily complied;  gave  the  flag,  and  confided  his 


46  DUPLEIX  AND 

intention  to  D'Aiitlieuil  and  to  La  Toiiche, 
who  was  to  command  the  party.  Nazir  be-, 
came  more  and  more  uneasy  and  undecided. 
He  meditated  retreating  to  the  Del^kan,  but 
was  deterred  by  tlie  disaffected  nobles.  At 
last  he  sent  to  accept  Dupleix's  terms.  But 
in  the  interval  La  Touehe  had  been  ordered  to 
advance.  The  French  attacked;  the  traitors 
drew  off  their  forces,  and  ranged  them  apart; 
Nazir,  slowly  convinced  that  he  had  stooped 
in  vain  to  conciliate  an  implacable  adversary, 
strove  as  vainly  to  check  the  progress  of  the 
assailants.  In  the  bitterness  of  his  heart  he. 
rode  up  to  and  reviled  the  Nawab  of  Canoul, 
who  replied  by  sending  a  bullet  through  his 
heart.  Mirzapha,  who  had  been  ordered  for 
execution  at  the  beginning  of  the  affray,  was 
liberated  by  the  conspirators,  proclaimed  sub- 
ahdar,  and  paraded  in  state,  preceded  by  the 
ghastly  trophy  of  his  uncle's  head  exalted  on 
a  pole.  Bussy  met  him  fresh  from  the  battle- 
field, and  typified  too  plainly  the  alien  influ- 
ence to  which  he  owed  his  sudden  deliverance 
and  precarious  elevation. 

Elated  by  the  success  of  his  policy,  Diipleix 
prepared  to  take  full  advantage  of  this  abrupt 
revolution.     His  first  care  was  to  make  ar-  ' 
rangements  for  enthroning  Mirzapha  at  Pon- 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  47 

dicherry,  with  every  circunistance  that  could 
give  luster  to  the  occasion,  and  significance  to 
his  own  weight  in  the  political  scale.  A  vast 
and  gorgeous  tent  was  erected,  within  which 
were  placed  two  chairs  of  state  (or  * 'thrones" 
as  M.  Hamont  calls  them),  one  for  Mirzapha, 
the  other  for  the  Viceroy  and  Governor-Gen- 
eral. Mirzapha  first  entered  the  tent  and 
seated  himself,  encircled  by  the  Dekkan  nobles 
in  all  tlieir  finery.  Dupleix  advanced  to  the 
rendezvous  in  an  imposing  procession.  He 
did  homage  to  Mirzapha,  and,  tendering  the 
customary  nuzziir,  was  installed  by  him  on 
the  vacant  chair  of  state.  Then  the  native 
grandees  in  turn  saluted  and  presented  tokens 
of  reverence  to  the  viceroy  of  the  king  of 
France  and  Mogul  Kawab  by  imperial  ap- 
pointment. Dupleix  was  invested  with  the 
kJielat—a  splendid  robe  of  state,  once  the  gift 
of  the  great  emperor  Aurungzib  to  Mirzapha's 
ancestor — together  with  a  turban,  a  sash,  a 
sword,  shield,  and  dagger;  and  he  paraded 
throughout  the  day  in  these  emblematical  ap- 
pendages of  oriental  dignity.  His  grateful  ally 
formally  declared  him  nawab  of  all  India  south 
of  the  Kistna  ;  bestowed  on  him  a  pompous 
name,  indicative  of  valor  and  assured  victory; 
raised  him  to  the  rank  of  a  commander  of  7,000 


48  DUPLEIX  AND 

horsemen;  and  added  the  more  substantial  do- 
nations of  the  town  and  territory  of  Valdore, 
to  be  held  by  him  and  his  descendants,  and  of 
a  large  annuity  to  himself,  and  another  of 
equal  value  to  his  wife.  The  subahdar  more- 
over decreed  that  the  money  of  Pondicherry 
should  have  exclusive  currency  in  southern 
India;  acknowledged  the  sovereignty  of  the 
French  company  over  Masulipatam  and  Ya- 
noon;  and  enlarged  their  territory  at  Karikal. 
Tie  is  said  also  to  have  formally  announced 
that  all  petitions  to  himself  should  be  thence- 
forth preferred  through  Dupleix. 

Such  a  scene  and  such  treatment  may  well 
have  turned  the  Frenchman's  head,  and  ex- 
posed him  to  the  half  incredulous,  half  admir- 
ing ridicule  of  his  lively  countrymen,  and  to 
the  serious  envy  and  bitter  taunts  of  his  crest- 
fallen English  rivals.  But,  vain  as  he  may 
have  been,  he  knew  too  well  the  precarious 
character  of  his  exaltation,  the  serious  difficul- 
ties that  lay  before  himjn  the  way  of  consoli- 
dating his  equivocal  and  hybrid  dominion, 
and  securing  the  solid  acquisitions  which  ac- 
companied the  grant  of  empty  titles,  and  the 
foppish  adornments  in  which  he  masqueraded. 
And  though  he  played  his  part  with  becoming 
gravity  as  a  native  potentate,  his  next  move 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  49 

was  dictated  by  sober  policy.  Professing  his 
deep  gratitude  for  the  ample  favors  conferred 
on  him,  he  disclaimed  all  wish  to  become  a 
personal  Indian  ruler:  he  had  but  obeyed  the 
orders  of  the  emperor  in  suppressing  rebellion, 
and  maintaining  the  cause  of  the  rightful  sub- 
ahdar.  But  in  this  good  work  Chunda  Sahib 
had  been  equally  faithful  and  zealous.  Let 
him,  therefore,  retain  the  prize  that  was  his 
due,  and  which  he  had  contemplated  when  he 
cemented  the  alliance  between  Mirzapha  and 
the  French.  Let  him  be  confirmed  in  the 
Nawabship  of  the  Carnatic.  The  proposal  was 
adopted.  Chunda  Sahib's  effective  assistance 
in  defending  the  province  was  secured;  while 
the  ingenious  JFrenchman  prudently  retained 
the  title  of  sub-viceroy  of  India  south  of  the 
Kistna,  which  gave  him  formal  supremacy 
over  Chunda  and  might  on  occasion  be  use- 
fully employed  in  diplomatic  disputes  with  the 
English.  Lastly,  to  confirm  and  perpetuate 
the  impression  produced  by  the  incidents  of 

0 

this  great  day,  he  ordered  a  triumphal  column 
to  be  erected  on  the  site  of  Nazir  Jung's  over- 
throw. And  around  it  was  to  arise  a  city 
whose  name  was  to  commemorate  the  same 
event,  and  his  capital  share  in  it. 
In  the  midst  of  his  triumph,  Dupleix  real- 


50  DUPLEIX  ATsD 

ized  that  he  must  pay  a  perilous  price  for 
the  maintenance  of  his  influence  Avith  the  sub- 
ahclar.  Mirzapha  was  anxious  to  return  to 
the  Dekkan;  and  he  urgently  requested  that  a 
body  of  French  troops  might  escort  him,  and 
continue  in  his  service.  This  request  was 
quite  in  accordance  with  Dupleix's  general 
policy;  but  in  his  actual  circumstances  it  was 
premature.  The  small  number  of  his  Euro- 
pean soldiers,  and  especially  of  officers,  and 
the  danger  of  diminishing  them  while  Maho- 
med Ali  was  still  master  of  Tricliinopoly,  and 
the  attitude  of  the  English  uncertain,  were 
very  serious  considerations.  And  it  was  too 
likely  that  those  who  had  already  been  ad- 
verse to  his  intervention  in  native  disputes, 
would  strongly  disapprove  of  this  remote  di- 
version of  troops  intended  to  guard  the  French 
X-)ossessions  on  the  coast.  Thus  the  difficulties 
that  he  raised  do  not  seem  to  have  been  simply 
effected.  But  Mirzapha's  lavish  ])romises 
were  very  seductive,  and  Mahomed  Ali  deter- 
mined him  by  offering  to  surrender  Tricliin- 
opoly, if  he  should  be  allowed  to  retain  his 
father's  treasures,  and  receive  an  appanage  in 
the  Dekkan.  He  reported  the  transaction  to 
the  directors  with  a  request  for  a  strong  rein- 
forcement, and  the  intimation  that  both  tlie 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  51 

native  rulers  were  to  pay  the  troops  while  in 
their  service. 

Bussy  was  appointed  to  attend  MIrzapha 
with  300  French  soldiers,  including  ten  offi- 
cers, 2,000  sepoys  and  Caffres,  and  a  haltery  of 
artillery.  Dupleix  was  much  affected  at  their 
departure.  His  anxiety  was  increased  by  the 
consciousness  that  Mirzapha  was  already  in  a 
critical  position.  The  three  nawabs  who  had 
conspired  against  Nazir  were  so  exorbitant  in 
their  demands  on  the  gratitude  of  bis  successor, 
that  he  was  equally  unable  and  unwilling  to 
satisfy  them.  The  favors  lavished  on  Dupleix 
made  them  still  more  dissatisfied;  and  though 
at  the  center  of  French  power  they  had  confined 
themselves  to  complaints,  at  a  distance  these 
might  ripen  into  violent  acts.  This  misgiving 
was  soon  realized.  As  the  army  traversed 
Cudapah,  the  territory  of  one  of  the  malcon- 
tents, they  created  a  commotion,  in  which 
they  were  worsted  and  slain.  But  at  the  close 
of  the  contest  Mirzapha  was  shot  down. 
Thus,  what  Dupleix  had  gained  in  a  moment 
by  the  murder  of  Nazir,  was  as  suddenly,  and 
by  the  same  savage  agency,  imperiled  by  the 
slaughter  of  Mirzapha.  But  he  now  profited 
by  his  skillful  selection  of  instruments.  Bussy 
and  his  Brahmin  adviser  procured  the  provis- 


52  DUPLEIX  AND 

ional  exaltation  of  Salabat  Jung,  a  3^ounger 
brother  of  Nazir,  and  who  was  in  the  camp, 
Mirzapha's  infant  son  being  rejected  as  ineli- 
gible at  such  a  crisis.  Dupleix  highly  ap- 
proved of  an  arrangement  which  promised  so 
well  for  the  maintenance  of  his  influence  in 
the  upper  country.  The  new  subahdar  was  ac- 
knowledged by  all  parties;  and  his  first  act  was 
to  confirm  and  extend  the  benefactions  granted 
by  his  predecessor  to  the  French.  The  army 
resumed  its  march;  and  Bussy  and  his  contin- 
gent prosecuted  an  adventurous  and  glorious 
career,  which  lies  beyond  our  immediate 
scope.  But  we  may  mention  that  it  did  not 
terminate,  nor  French  ascendency  cease  in  the 
Dekkan,  until  Lally  hastily  recalled  Bussy  to 
the  Carnatic;  and  Forde,  detached  by  Clive 
from  Bengal,  routed  the  French  at  Peddapore, 
stormed  Masulipatam,  and  conquered  the 
northern  Circars. 

Hitherto  Dupleix 's  policy  seemed  justified 
by  its  results.  He  had  humbled  the  English 
and  exalted  the  French  by  the  capture  of  ^la- 
dras,  and  the  sucessful  defence  of  Pondi- 
cherry.  He  had  dispelled  the  awe  of  native 
armaments,  and  with  a  handful  of  men  had 
asserted  the  resistless  superiority  of  European 
skill  and  discipline  over  Asiastic  numbers. 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  53 

The  English,  dazzled  by  the  splendor  of  his 
achievements,  disheartened  at  their  own  poor 
performance  in  the  rapid  drama,  mistrustful 
of  Mahomed  Ali,  and  knowing  the  aversion  of 
the  directors  to  the  perils  and  expenses  of  war, 
seemed  little  inclined  to  dispute  the  progress 
of  their  bold  rival.  Still  Trichinopoly  was 
not  surrendered. 

Mahomed  All's  overtures  had  been  a  mere 
expedient  for  gaining  time.  He  had  now,  by 
lavish  promises,  secured  the  assistance  of  the 
Mysore  regent,  of  a  Mahratta  force,  and  of  the 
English;  and  he  flatly  refused  to  evacuate 
Trichinopoly.  Its  siege  was  first  undertaken 
by  D'Autheuil;  but  an  attack  of  gout  in  er- 
rupted  his  construction  of  batteries,  and  dis- 
abled him  so  completely  that  Dupleix  recalled 
him  and  in  an  evil  hour  gave  the  command  to 
Law,  a  nephew  of  the  great  speculator.  By  a 
curious  coincidence,  the  timidity  of  the  nephew 
was  destined  to  prove  as  fatal  to  French  am- 
bition in  Asia,  as  the  uncle's  audacity  had 
proved  to  her  financial  affairs  in  Europe.  The 
younger  Law  was  by  no  means  destitute  of 
assurance;  he  was  voluble  and  plausible  at 
Pondicherry;  he  had  shown  himself  brave  in 
the  defence  of  the  fort  of  Ariancopan;  but  he 
was  utterly  unfit  for  a  separate  and  critical 


54  .  DUPLEIX  AND 

command.  lu  such  a  position  he  was  op- 
pressed with  tlie  sense  of  responsibiUty;  and 
from  first  to  hist  his  desponding  temper  and 
hesitating  conduct  went  far  to  bring  about  the 
ensuing  catastrophe.  His  first  dispatch  must 
have  given  Dupleix  a  painful  shock.  He  de- 
scribed the  place  as  too  strong  to  be  taken  by 
a  coup  de  main;  he  dwelt  on  the  difficulties  of 
a  regular  siege,  and  the  loss  of  life  that  must 
attend  the  final  assault,  and  recommended  a 
close  blockade  as  the  easiest  and  safest  plan. 
Dupleix  thought  otherwise;  but  he  was  at  the 
time  prostrated  by  the  death  of  his  brother, 
his  one  devoted  champion  against  the  libels 
of  Labourdonnais,  and  the  growing  disfavor 
with  which  his  policy  was  regarded  in  France. 
Thus,  against  his  better  judgment,  he  yielded 
to  Law*s  importunity,  and  consented  to  the 
blockade. 

From  this  moment  Fortune  seemed  to  have 
deserted  her  spoiled  child.  Hitherto  the  gen- 
eralship had  been  on  his  side.  Kow  this  was 
reversed.  Clive  suddenly  appeared  on  the 
scene;  created  a  powerful  diversion  by  taking 
and  heroically  defending  Arcot,  the  capital  of 
the  Carnatic;  assumed  tlie  offensive  in  turn, and 
defeated  his  besiegers  in  a  bloody  battle;  and 
on  their  retreat  to  Gingee  prepared  to  relieve 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  55 

Trichinopoly.  Dupleix  sought  to  gain  time  for 
the  operation  of  the  blockade  by  threatening 
Madras,  and  amusing  CUve  with  marches,  and 
countermarches.  But  the  * 'heaven-bom  gen- 
eral" was  not  to  be  thus  dallied  with  innocu- 
ously. He  overtook  the  French  army  at  Covre- 
pauk,  and  inflicted  on  it  another  terrible  de- 
feat. He  then  hurried  off  to  expedite  a  convoy 
for  the  relief  of  the  beleaguered  city,  demol- 
ishing on  his  way  Dupleix 's  vaunting  column. 
The  spell  of  French  invincibility  was  broken; 
the  military  reputation  of  the  English  was 
established;  an  able  general,  at  the  head  of  a 
victorious  army,  was  marching  to  the  critical 
point;  the  covering  army,  which  ought  to  have 
disputed  his  advance,  was  dissipated  ;  and  to 
crown  all,  Law  chose  this  appropriate  moment 
for  requesting  leave  to  i  evisit  Pondicherry,  on 
account  of  his  wife's  approaching  confinement. 
Dupleix  refused,  and  rebuked  him  sharply. 
He  ought  to  have  superseded  him,  but  was  at 
a  loss  for  a  fit  man  to  replace  him;  and  he 
hoped,  by  positive  and  minute  orders,  to  keep 
the  malingerer  up  to  his  work. 

To  intercept  the  convoy  was  of  the  utmost 
importance;  and  Law's  greatly  superior  force 
ought  to  have  made  this  a  comparatively  easy 
task,  considering  the  long  train  of  cumbrous 


56  DUPLEIX  AND 

wagons,  slow  oxen,  and  timid  coolies,  the 
distance  to  be  traversed,  and  the  natural  obsta- 
cles on  the  way.  He  had  900  Europeans, 
2,000  sepoys,  and  Chunda  Sahib's  army,  com- 
puted at  80,000.  These  Dupleix  reinforced 
with  every  available  man  from  the  garrison  of 
Gingee.  The  English  had  only  400  Europeans 
and  900  sepoys.  Law  was  ordered  to  leave 
300  French  and  two-thirds  of  Chunda's  multi- 
tude before  the  place,  and  with  the  rest  to 
meet  the  convoy  as  far  in  advance  as  possible. 
After  promising  compliance,  he  veered  round; 
enlarged  on  the  danger  of  a  Mahratta  inroad ; 
suggested  a  march  into  Mysore  to  counteract 
it;  and  finally  proposed  to  withdraw  his  whole 
army  into  the  island.  Dupleix,  amazed  and  in- 
dignant, in  a  biting  dispatch  insisted  that  the 
last  hopeful  project  should  be  submitted  to  a 
council  of  war,  confident  that  the  general 
voice  of  the  ofl[lcers  would  condemn  it.  Thus 
he  concluded:  Laissez  Vavenir  venir  ei  Ballad- 
ji-Rao  [i.  e.,  the  Peishwa].  iV<j  songez  qu'au 
present;  iacluz  de  wiis  persuader  de  V impor- 
tance de  detruire  le  conwi;  laissez  moi  le  soin 
du  reste.  And  announcing  that  the  English 
army  had  left  Cuddalore,  he  repeated  his  pro- 
phetic warning:  21  est  de  voire  honneiir  de  de- 
truire le  secours.     Tout  depend  de  ce  coup.     Ne 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  57 

negligez  Hen  pour  reussir.  But  Law  seemed 
fascinated  by  CJive's  terrible  audacity,  energy, 
and  skill,  now  all  the  more  formidable  because 
they  were  combined  with  Lawrence's  expe- 
rience, and  respectable  though  less  original 
military  talents.  While  he  should  have  been 
marching,  he  was  still  arguing;  andDuj)leix's 
crushing  replies  die  away  in  a  wail  of  indignant 
despondence.  Je  mus  avertis  de  tout;  qu'en 
arriverat-ilf  Dieu  le  salt.  J'y  suis  resigne,  et  ce 
quefapprendrai  7ie  me  surprendra  plus.  11  sera 
pourtant  difficile  de  persuader  en  France  que 
trente  mille  homines  en  aient  laisse  passer  deux 
millCy  embarrasses  d'un  charroi  et  d'un  trans- 
port effroyables. 

Thus  Lawrence,  who  had  now  taken  the 
chief  command,  neared  Coiladdy  unopposed. 
Thence  he  was  fired  upon  with  some  loss  and 
more  confusion;  and  a  bold  sally  from  the  fort, 
supported  by  an  advance  from  the  French 
lines,  must  have  been  perilous,  if  not  fatal,  to 
his  immediate  object.  But  Law  recalled  the 
garrison  of  Coiladdy,  and,  fearing  a  sally  from 
the  city,  posted  his  army  so  awkwardly  that 
Lawrence  succeeded  in  turning  it.  By  a  reso- 
lute onslaught  during  this  flank  march  Law 
might  have  defeated  the  English,  or  at  least 
taken  or  destroyed  a  large  part  of  the  stores 


58  DUPLEIX  AND 

and  provisions.  But  he  hesitated  too  long; 
and  when  he  did  advance  he  was  daunted  by 
a  sortie  of  the  garrison,  and  after  an  idle  can- 
nonade fell  back.  Meanwhile  the  convoy  had 
pursued  its  way  on  the  unexposed  flank  of  the 
English  column,  and  was  triumphantly  wel- 
comed in  the  city. 

This  decisive  failure  completed  the  prostra- 
tion of  the  Scotchman's  spirit.  Dupleix's 
Cassandra  warnings  must  have  rung  in  his 
ears  like  the  knell  of  his  fortune  and  honor  as 
a  soldier.  Taking  counsel  of  his  fears— and 
not,  as  Dupleix  had  expressly  ordered,  of  his 
officers — he  gave  the  word  for  an  immediate 
retreat  into  the  island.  This  decision  w^as 
vigorously,  but  fruitlessly,  combated  by 
Chunda  Sahib.  And  it  was  carried  out  in  in- 
decent and  prodigal  haste.  A  large  part  of 
the  vast  stores  of  provisions  which  had  been 
laid  in  was  sacrificed,  together  with  much  of 
the  baggage.  Chunda  Sahib  gloomily  fol- 
lowed. The  French  occupied  the  pagoda  of 
Jumbakishna:  of  their  allies  some  went  into 
Seringham;  others  settled  themselves  along 
the  bank  of  the  Coleroon. 

Dupleix  described  his  heart  as  ''bleeding'* 
at  these  tidings,  which  at  first  he  refused  to 
believe.    When  convinced,  he  resolved,  too 


THE  INDIAN   EMPIRE.  59 

late,  to  supersede  the  craven  general.  Je  ne 
veux  plus  etre  prophete,  fai  trop  averti  en  'Gain. 
It  faut  retirer  le  commandement  a  cet  liomme. 
He  earnestly  appealed  to  the  infirm  but  gallant 
D'Autheuil  to  undertake  the  arduous,  perhaps 
desperate,  task  of  saving  the  army  and  its 
honor.  And  D'Autheuil,  like  Coote  in  similar 
circumstances,  responded  to  the  call  of  duty. 
In  announcing  to  Lav?"  his  recall,  Dupleix 
added  the  cutting  gibe:  Jc  suis  persuade  que 
cet  arrancjement  'cafaire  plaisir  a  madame  vo- 
ire femme,  qui  ne  desire  que  le  moment  de  wus 
tenir  dans  ses  bras. 

Meanwhile  Clive  had  proposed  a  plan  which 
could  hardly  fail  to  bring  the  contest  to  a  rapid 
and  decisive  issue.  His  aim  was  to  isolate  the 
enemy  in  their  exposed  situation;  and  thus,  as 
at  Syracuse,  to  turn  the  besiegers  into  the  be- 
sieged. One  division  of  the  army  was  to 
guard  the  city,  and  threaten  Law  from  the 
south;  another  was  to  push  across  the  rivers, 
intercept  his  communication  with  Pondi- 
cherry,  and  operate  against  any  reinforcement 
which  Dupleix  might  be  able  to  provide. 
Though  he  proposed  that  the  two  divisions 
should  remain  within  a  forced  march  of  each 
other,  Clive 's  project  was,  considering  the  dis- 
parity of  numbers,  a  characteristically  bold 


60  DUPLEIX  AND 

one ;  as  Orme  says  :  'This  was  risking  the 
whole  to  save  the  whole."  Lawrence  as- 
sented, and  gave  the  command  of  the  detach- 
ment to  Clive  himself.  He  soon  occupied. 
Semiaveram,  seven  miles  north  of  the  Cole- 
roon.  Dupleix  insisted  that  he  should  be 
immediately  assailed  and  dislodged.  But 
Law,  already  in  want  of  provisions,  threw 
away  his  last  chance  of  profiting  by  hi«  supe- 
rior numbers,  and  of  securing  the  junction  of 
D'Autheuil,  who  might  still  have  rescued  him. 
Nor  was  this  all.  He  had  alread}^  engrossed 
and  paralyzed  almost  all  the  soldiers  of  the 
French  army.  He  now  opened  a  correspond- 
ence with  the  enemy,  still  more  deeply  de- 
pressed his  troops,  and  their  allies,  and  excited 
suspicion  of  treasonable  intentions.  Dupleix 
authorized  D'Autheuil,  in  the  last  extremity, 
to  conclude  peace,  which  was  to  be  made  for- 
mally between  Chunda  Sahib  and  Mahomed 
Ali.  La  situation,  he  added,  oil  Vaxidite  de 
Law  a  mis  nos  affaires  me  font  penser  que  c'est 
le  seul  parti  qui  nous  reste.  Thus  he  seems  to 
have  suspected  that  Law,  like  his  uncle,  was 
making  his  own  game  at  the  expense  of  his 
adopted  country.  Though  this  imputation 
may  be  dismissed,  it  was  less  ridiculous  than 
a  wild  project  which  the  governor -general 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  61 

broached  of  liberating  the  army  by  bribing 
Lawrence. 

D'Autheuil's  force,  including  the  garrison 
of  Volcondah,  which  he  picked  up  on  his  way, 
amounted  only  to  120  Europeans,  500  sepoys, 
and  four  guns,  with  a  large  convoy.  He  sent 
a  letter,  in  duplicate,  to  announce  his  ap- 
proach, and  request  Law  to  detach  to  his  sup- 
port. One  copy  of  the  letter  w^as  safely  re- 
ceived; but  the  other  Clive  intercepted,  and 
thereupon  advanced  against  D'Autheuil,  who 
retreated  hastily.  Law  sent  a  feeble  party  to 
Semiaveram  in  Olive's  absence,  but  on  his  un- 
expected return  he  overpowered  it;  and,  after 
more  fighting  and  the  capture  of  the  convoy 
at  Utatoor,  he  fell  upon  D'Autheuil  at  Vol- 
condah and  compelled  him  to  surrender. 

Before  this  happened  the  monsoon  had 
burst,  and  increased  the  difficulty  of  crossing 
the  swelling  rivers.  But  while  Chunda  Sa- 
hib's army,  as  his  fortune  declined,  dwindled 
away  apace,  and  many  of  his  followers  joined 
the  English,  Lawrence  made  his  way  into  the 
island;  threw  up  an  entrenchment  across  it 
from  north  to  south;  and  the  Tan j ore  troops 
being  posted  to  the  east,  and  the  Mysoreans  to 
the  west,  of  the  city,  while  Olive's  division 
lined  the  north  bank  of  the  Ooleroon,  the  toils 


62  DUPLEIX  AND 

were  effectually  thrown  round  the  late  besieg- 
ers. Dupleix  still  maintained  that  famine 
would  be  no  excuse  for  surrender,  and  urged 
Law  to  fight  his  \vay  to  Karikal,  which  he 
thought  practicable,  as  the  flooded  river  would 
prevent  the  junction  of  the  English  divisions. 
As  it  was,  Law  showed  no  disposition  to  make 
the  desperate  effort,  but,  on  13lh  June,  1753, 
tamely  capitulated;  and  with  him  35  oflicers, 
785  Europeans,  2,000  sepoys,  and  41  guns 
were  captured.  Chunda  Sahib  gave  himself 
up  to  Monacjee,  the  Tanjorine  general,  who 
put  him  to  death. 

Dupleix's  position  might  now  well  appear 
desperate;  to  make  peace  at  once,  or  to  recall 
Bussy  and  employ  him  in  a  supreme  effort  to 
capture  Trichinopoly,  seemed  the  only  alter- 
native open  to  him.  Yet  he  chose  neither, 
but  preferred  to  try  a  third  plan,  for  which 
there  was  certainly  much  to  be  said,  but  which 
involved  the  proverbial  danger  of  a  middle 
course,  and  proved  in  the  end  most  unfortu- 
nate. 

He  despaired  of  obtaining  tolerable  terms 
from  an  enemy  flushed  with  such  a  victory. 
He  calculated  that  political  caution  would  re- 
strain the  English  from  an  immediate  attack 
on  the  French  capital,  and  he  did  not  fear 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  63 

such  an  attack  if  made  by  native  forces  only. 
lie  had  also  reason  to  helieve  that  the  victors 
were  on  the  eve  of  a  quarrel  among  themselves, 
which  he  might  turn  to  his  advantage.  Kein- 
forcements  from  France  were  due;  and  they 
arrived  opportunely.  Olive's  health  too  was 
impaired,  and  he  returned  to  Europe.  To 
him  the  English  had  mainly  owed  their  suc- 
cess, and  without  him  they  would  be  much 
less  formidable.  Moreover,  Dupleix  hoped  to 
form  a  league  between  the  Subahdar  and  the 
Peishwa,  who  had  lately  been  at  war;  to  bring 
down  the  united  forces  of  the  Dekkan  on  My- 
sore, so  as  to  compel  the  regent  of  that  state 
to  espouse  the  French  cause;  and  then  to  make 
this  great  confederation  available  for  reducing 
Trichinopoly,  overpowering  the  English  and 
Mahomed  Ali,  and  restoring  his  own  ascend- 
ency in  the  Carnatic.  Whatever  force  there 
might  be  in  some  of  these  reasons  for  perse- 
vering in  the  contest,  the  scheme  of  native  co- 
operation from  the  Dekkan,  the  magnitude 
and  comprehensiveness  of  which  excite  M. 
Hamont's  glowing  admiration,  required  too 
much  time  to  give  it  effect:  it  was  also  too 
complicated;  it  ignored  too  much  the  jealous 
and  vindictive  position  of  the  Poona  Mahrat- 
tas;  and  it  was  promptly  thwarted  by  one  of 


64  DUPLEIX  AND 

the  Nizam's  ministers,  who  stirred  up  a  mu- 
tiny in  his  army,  which  prevented  its  taking 
the  field,  and  was  the  prelude  of  other  serious 
and  engrossing  disturbances. 

We  have  not  space  to  follow  the  course  of 
the  renewed  war,  which  was  equally  notable 
for  the  hard  fighting  of  the  Europeans  on  both 
sides;  for  the  steadfastness  and  wariness  of 
Dalton,  the  commander  in  Trichinopoly, which 
again  became  the  chief  bone  of  contention;  for 
the  activity  of  Lawrence  in  relieving  the  be- 
leaguered city,  and  his  skill  in  defeating  with 
his  small  army  the  vast  hosts  of  the  assailants; 
and,  above  all,  for  the  indefatigable  efforts  of 
Dupleix  to  supply  the  means  of  carrying  on 
the  obstinate  contest,  and  to  repair,  by  his 
judicious  and  detailed  instructions,  the  con- 
spicuous want  of  capacity  among  his  ofllcers. 

The  diplomacy  of  Dupleix,  or  rather  that 
of  his  wife,  detached  the  Mysorean  and  Morari 
Rao  from  Mahomed  Ali  and  the  English;  and 
securing  them  as  allies,  reestablished  the 
blockade  of  the  city.  But  as  he  was  never 
able  to  take  it,  and  the  wasting  war  involved 
liim  and  the  company  deeper  and  deeper  in 
embarrassment  and  increased  the  exasperation 
of  the  English  against  him,  there  seemed  less 
and  less  hope  that  he  could  escape  condemna- 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  65 

tlon  for  persisting  in  designs  wliicli,  however 
plausible  in  their  origin,  were  opposed  by  the 
stern  logic  of  facts.  Thus  he  did  at  last  con- 
sent to  treat,  but,  even  then,  in  no  temper  of 
practical  compromise.  He  still  insisted  on  the 
recognition  by  his  adversaries  of  the  authority 
which  had  been  delegated  to  him  by  successive 
subahdars;  and  supported  his  pretensions  by 
alleged  charters  from  them,  and  from  the  em- 
peror, which  the  English  loudly  asserted  to  be 
forgeries.  This  charge  was  vehemently  repu- 
diated at  the  time  by  the  French  negotiators. 
But  thus  no  common  basis  could  be  estab- 
lished; and  hostilities  were  resumed.  The 
end,  however,  was  at  hand.  In  this  last  trans- 
action Dupleix  seems  to  have  been  almost  ju- 
dicially blind;  for  relating  the  conference  to 
Bussy,  he  writes:  Tout  ce  que  nous  avotis  pre- 
senU,  firmans,  paravaruis,  et  autres  pieces,  tout 
avail  ete  forge  par  nous.  This  is  a  melancholy 
revelation,  though  not  more  so  than  Clivers 
shamelessly  fraudulent  treatment  of  Omi- 
chund. 

The  storm  that  had  long  been  brewing  in 
France  was  now  to  burst  on  Dupleix 's  devoted 
head.  The  Governor-General  must,  indeed, 
have  been  well  aware  that  he  stood  on  very 
slippery    ground;    that  powerful    influences 


66  DUPLEIX  AND 

were  banded  logetlier  against  him;  that  the 
surrender  of  the  French  army  at  Trichinopoly 
liad  gone  far  to  eclipse  the  luster  of  earlier 
achievements;  and  that  his  subsequent  failure 
to  reduce  that  city  was  an  unanswerable  argu- 
ment against  his  policy.  The  company  resent- 
ed the  siispension  of  their  trade,  and  the  ab- 
sorption of  their  funds  in  war  expenses.  The 
ministers  were  anxious  to  conciliate  England, 
and  feared  that  the  Carnatic  struggle  might 
provoI:e  a  European  war.  Public  opinion  was 
adverse  to  schemes  which  seemed  at  once  vis- 
ionary and  inglorious  in  their  results.  La- 
bourdonnais  was  indefatigable  in  fanning  the 
flame  of  indignation  against  his  rival;  and 
Dupleix's  champion,  B'Autheuil,  whom  he 
had  sent  home  to  explain  and  defend  his 
course,  was  so  injudicious  in  his  advocacy, 
that  M.  Hamont  says  of  him  roundly:  Son 
amhassadefui  plus  nuisihle  qu^ utile  mix  inUrets 
de  Dupleix. 

Thus  negotiations  were  entei*ed  into  with 
England,  and  a  convention  was  concluded, 
whereby  commissioners  were  to  be  appointed 
for  reconciling  the  two  Companies,  and  pre- 
venting the  recurrence  of  war  between  them 
while  their  respective  nations  should  be  at 
peace.     And  it  was  agreed  that  both  Dupleix 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  67 

and  Saunders  should  be  recalled.  To  estimate 
this  point  rightly,  we  must  look  back  at  Du- 
pleix's  conduct,  and  remember  his  character- 
istic disposition.  Did  he  act  wisely  in  taking 
up  Chunda  Sahib's  cause.  If  so — and  this 
proceeding  had  been  condoned  by  the  direc- 
tors— was  he  wise  in  prosecuting  the  was 
against  Mahomed  Ali  and  the  English  after 
the  loss  of  his  army  and  the  death  of  his  can- 
didate? His  reasons  for  doing  so  we  have 
stated.  But  they  did  not  satisfy  his  employers 
or  the  king's  ministers;  and  as  the  continua- 
tion of  the  contest  seemed  to  them  to  open  an 
indefinite  vista  of  expense  and  peril  without 
any  corresponding  advantage,  his  recall  ap- 
peared to  them  essential.  For  could  he  be 
trusted  not  only  to  effect,  but  to  abide  by,  a 
real  pacification?  Would  it  not  have  been 
found  too  late,  that,  taking  occasion  from 
some  new  and  plausible  opening  for  adven- 
ture he  had  resumed  the  attempt  to  redevelop 
his  ''system?'* 

But  whatever  may  be  thought  as  to  the  ne- 
cessity of  his  removal,  there  can  be  only  one 
opinion  of  the  way  in  which  it  was  effected, 
and  of  the  French  commissioner's  conduct  to- 
ward  him.  It  would  seem  that  the  Govern- 
ment and  the  Company  were  seriously  afraid 


68  DUPLEIX  AND 

that  one  who  had  so  long  ruled  as  a  master 
might  refuse  to  relinquish  his  authority  with- 
out a  struggle.  Godeheu  was  accordingly 
provided  with  2,000  soldiers,  a  force  that,  if 
sent  sooner  and  properly  officered,  might  have 
brought  the  long  contest  to  a  triumphant  issue. 
And  an  order  signed  by  the  king  empowered 
Godelieu  to  arrest  the  Governor-General,  guard 
him  securely,  and  send  him  home  a  prisoner 
on  the  first  vessel  that  should  sail  for  France. 
This  mandate  was  absolute.  But  a  second 
order  dispensed  with  its  execution  in  case  Du- 
pleix  should  submit  quietly;  though  it  added, 
that  if  Godeheu  judged  it  necessary  to  arrest 
him,  Madame  Dupleix  and  her  daughter  were 
to  share  the  same  fate,  and  were  to  have  no 
communication  with  him.  Meanwhile  the 
dispatches  of  the  directors,  and  Godeheu's  own 
letters,  were  so  worded  as  to  excite  no  surmise 

of  the  real  drift  of  the  commission.     So  com- 

• 

pletely  was  Dupleix  deceived,  that  he  wrote 
thus:  N'allez  pas  regarder  cette  resolution  de  la 
compagnie  comme  une  marque  de  son  ingrati- 
tude a  mon  egard.  Je  la  regarde,  au  contraire, 
comme  un  service  essenticl  qu^elle  me  rend,  ct 
surtout  a  avoir  fait  le  clioix  ce  Godelieu,  qui  est 
le  plus  cher  de  mes  amis. 
On  arriving  in  the  river  the  commissioner 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  69 

sent  another  unctuous  and  cunningly  reticent 
letter,  declining,  however,  Dupleix's  proffered 
hospitality.  He  disembarked  surrounded  by 
guards  and  other  military  display.  The  Gov- 
ernor-General met  him  on  the  bank,  and 
offered  him  his  hand.  Godeheu  bowed  stiffly, 
and  presented  a  letter  from  himself  for  Du- 
pleix's perusal.  This,  amid  many  polite 
phrases,  and  still  suppressing  the  occasion, 
and  misrepresenting  the  character  of  the  meas- 
ure, abruptly  revealed  the  fact  of  the  Gov- 
ernor-General's recall,  and  that  of  his  family, 
to  France.  LHntention  da  roi,  said  this  glozing 
epistle,  7i'e8t  que  de  metire  la  compagnie  a  parte 
de  vos  lumieres.  Before  Dupleix  cauld  recover 
from  his  astonishment,  or  ask  any  question, 
Godeheu  produced  the  royal  mandate  revok- 
ing the  Governor-General's  commission,  and  a 
second,  demanding  a  detailed  report  on  the 
company's  affairs.  Dupleix  calmly  perused 
these  documents  but  it  was  observed  that  he 
grew  pale.  Declaring  his  readiness  to  obey 
the  king's  commands,  he  requested  to  be 
favored  with  any  other  of  which  Godeheu 
might  be  the  bearer.  Then  with  one  long- 
drawn  sigh,  and  a  fixed  and  contemptuous 
gaze  at  his  false  friend,  he  silently  awaited  the 
issue  of  this  strange  scene.     Godeheu  desired 


70  DUPIiEIX  AND 

liim  to  summon  the  Council.  The  news 
spread  fast,  and  a  crowd  beset  the  pne- 
cincts  of  tlie  council  chamber.  Godeheu 
ordered  his  guards  to  disperse  it.  Then 
seating  himself,  and  motioning  Dupleix  to  sit 
beside  him,  he  solemnly  recited  his  instructions 
amid  profound  silence.  Dupleix  showed 
great  self-restraint,  but  his  hands  at  times 
twitched  convulsively.  With  bowled  head  he 
listened  attentively,  and  at  the  close  he  rose, 
and  with  extended  arms  exclaimed,  Vive  le 
roi!  The  cry  was  taken  up,  and  he  quitted 
the  council  chamber,  and  poured  forth  to 
Bussy  the  bitterness  of  his  soul. 

The  following  evening  Godeheu  assumed 
command  as  governor.  But  his  moral  author- 
ity was  impaired  by  the  subterfuge  which  he 
had  practiced,  and  by  the  j^itiful  contrast 
which  he  presented  to  the  brilliant  and  un- 
daunted ruler  who  had  so  long  defied  the 
storms  of  fate,  and  whose  attitude  of  dignified 
resignation  might  imply  tacit  rebuke,  but 
offered  no  excuse  for  violence.  The  new  gov- 
ernor complained  that  Dupleix  talked  of  re- 
turning in  the  course  of  two  years.  But  as 
he  had  himself,  by  his  misrepresentation,  sug- 
gested this  hope,  so  he  now  determined  to  frus- 
trate it.     He  sought  eagerly,  but  vainly,  to 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  71 

ruin  Dupleix's  personal  character  by  elicitinp^ 
against  him  charges  of  pecuniary  corruption; 
and  regretted  that,  to  facilitate  this  noble  end, 
the  order  of  arrest  had  not  been  left  absolute. 
C'etait  le  moyen  de  decouwir  tout,  et  de  me 
mettre  en  etat  d'agir  avec  fruit.  In  default  of 
this  expedient  he  imprisoned  Papiapoule,  the 
agent  who  managed  the  assignments  on  the 
Carnatic  districts,  mortgaged  to  Dupleix  for 
the  liquidation  of  his  large  personal  advances 
to  the  native  princes.  This  tyrannical  act  not 
producing  any  incriminating  revelations,  he 
misappropriated  the  assignments  to  the  use  of 
the  Company;  refused,  on  the  absurd  plea  of 
their  intricacy,  to  sanction  the  auditing  and 
passing  of  the  Governor-General's  accounts 
which  showed  a  balance  against  the  company 
of  a  quarter  of  a  million  sterling;  and  even 
prevented  the  cashing  of  a  large  bill  which 
tliey  had  made  payable  to  Dupleix.  Thus  this 
false  and  cruel  man  reduced  his  old  benefactor 
and  recently  alleged  intimate  friend  to  beggary 
and  w^orse;  for  Dupleix's  influence  had  in- 
duced many  friends  and  admirers  to  intrust 
him  with  large  sums  for  the  public  service, 
which  he  thus  lost  the  means  of  repaying,  and 
for  which  he  was  sued  on  his  return  to  France. 
Nor  would  Godeheu  advance  him  money  on 


72  PUPLEIX  AND 

the  Company's  account  and  on  the  security  of 
his  claims;  tliough  he  privately  lent  him  a 
small  sum,  which  the  ex -governor -general  was 
constrained  to  accept  for  immediate  necessities. 
The  commissioner's  political  adjustment  is 
beyond  our  present  province.  But  we  may 
remark  generally,  that  although  later  orders 
from  France  preserved  the  Dekkan  connec- 
tion, the  tendency  of  his  other  arrangements 
was  to  sacrifice  the  interests  of  his  countrymen, 
and  to  give  England  a  decided  preponderance 
on  the  eastern  coast.  Thus  he  aggravated  the 
unfavorable  conditions  under  which  Lally  con- 
tended with  us  a  few  years  later,  and  may  be 
said  to  have  prepared  the  way  for  the  downfall 
of  the  French  power  in  India. 

The  melancholy  close  of  Dupleix's  story 
may  be  told  very  briefly.  He  embarked 
amid  the  cordial  and  publicly  expressed  sym- 
pathy of  the  settlement.  His  arrival  in  France 
was  greeted  with  popular  enthusiasm;  at  first 
he  was  well  received  by  the  ministers;  and  the 
Pompadour  made  much  of  his  wife.  He  even 
began  to  hope  that  he  might  be  reinstated. 
But  the  pacification  once  accomplished,  he 
was  frowned  upon  by  the  court,  slighted  by 
the  ministry,  harassed  by  creditors,  insulted 
by  officers  formerly  under  his  authority,  and 


THE   INDIAN   EMPIRE.  73 

wlio  had  conceived  grudges  against  him,  and 
exposed  to  popular  ridicule  as  a  political  char- 
latan. But  worst  of  all  was  his  treatment  by 
his  old  emploj'ers.  lie  could  obtain  no  adjud- 
ication of  his  claims  on  the  Company.  In 
vain  he  memorialized,  earnestly,  luminously, 
convincingly.  He  was  answered,  and  replied 
with  indisputable  cogency.  The  literary  con- 
troversy was  prolonged,  but  without  effect. 
Godeheu's  maneuver  had  encouraged  and  en- 
abled the  directors  to  evade  a  judicial  settle- 
ment of  his  demands.  And  they  were  never 
settled. 

The  death  of  Madame  Dupleix  in  November, 
1756,  left  her  husband  unspeakably  desolate. 
And  though  two  years  later  he  remarried,  ap- 
parently happily,  his  second  wife  had  little 
fortune,  and  he  became  more  and  more  im- 
poverished, though  he  still  made  gallant  effort 
to  relieve  friends  who  had  been  involved  in 
his  ruin.  He  was  at  last  threatened  with  an 
execution  on  his  poor  effects,  and  expulsion 
from  his  humble  retreat.  In  a  state  of  ex- 
treme exhaustion,  he  composed  a  1-st  and  pit- 
eous summary  of  his  services,  his  wrongs,  and 
his  forlorn  condition;  and  three  days  after- 
ward he  expired,  on  November  10, 1763,  hav- 
ing survived  the  final  triumph  of  the  English 


74  DUPLEIX  AND 

in  the  great  duel  which  he  had  first  provoked. 
That  Dupleix  was  not  only  a  remarkable, 
but  a  really  great  man,  is  the  general  impres- 
sion conveyed  by  an  attentive  study  of  his  his- 
tory. The  originality,  boldness  and  magnitude 
of  his  political  conceptions;  his  versatile  ability, 
displaj'cd  alike  in  its  application  to  commerce, 
politics,  and  war;  his  inexhaustible  fertility  of 
resource;  his  high  moral  courage;  his  indom- 
itable energy  and  perseverance;  his  munifi- 
cent devotion  of  an  ample  fortune  to  the  public 
service;  the  marvels  w^hich  he  wrought  with  in- 
adequate means  and  unpromising  instruments; 
the  unhesitating  confidence  which  he  inspired 
both  in  Europeans  and  natives,  and  which  was 
exemplified  in  the  continuous  acquiescence  of 
his  council  in  his  adventurous  policy;  the  ad- 
miration which  he  extorted  from  his  enemies; 
the  enthusiastic  sympathy  wiiich  he  kindled 
not  only  in  the  young  and  chivalrous  Bussy, 
but  in  the  aged  and  gout-stricken  D'Autheuil; 
the  precautions  which  were  adopted  by  the 
French  authorities  and  their  sycophantic  agent 
to  trepan  and  coerce  him  into  the  surrender  of 
his  authority;  his  loj^al  and  unconditional  sub- 
mission to  the  adverse  verdict,  though  it  cast 
him  down  from  the  pinnacle  of  power  under 
the  feet  of  one  of  the  meanest  and  most  worth- 


THE   INDIAN  EMPIRE.  75 

less  of  men ;  and  his  dignified  demeanor  after 
liis  resignation: — all  these  tokens  bespeak  the 
presence  of  a  king  of  men. 

He  has  been  taxed  with  inordinate  vanity. 
The  charge,  if  not  unfounded,  seems  to  be  at 
least  much  exaggerated,  and  mainly  the  result 
of  misapprehension,  national  antipathy,  per- 
sonal prejudice,  and  studied  misrepresentation. 
*  *  Vain"  was,  nay  is,  one  of  the  stock  epithets  too 
readily  applied  by  sober  Englishmen  to  their 
more  mercurial  and  self- asserting  neighbors; 
and  it  was,  of  course,  liberally  bestowed  on 
one  who  pushed  himself  into  such  sudden  and 
invidious  eminence,  and  for  a  while  bestrode 
the  Indian  world  like  a  Colossus.  And  his 
policy  of  impressing  the  oriental  imagination 
by  a  dramatic  display  of  dignity  as  the  French 
king's  viceroy;  by  making  much  of  the  title 
of  nawab  to  which  he  had  succeeded,  and 
parading  the  new  honors  and  decorations  re- 
ceived from  his  Mogul  patron;  and  by  trum- 
peting his  successes  far  and  wide,  and  graving 
in  the  living  stone  his  triumph  over  Nazir  Jung 
— all  these  devices  naturally  caused  him  to  be 
regarded  as  a  man  of  an  unbounded  stomach. 
This  estimate  was  confirmed  by  his  conduct 
in  the  later  stages  of  the  Carnatic  contest. 
Orme  men!  ions  how,  while  Chunda  Sahib  was 


X 


DUPLEIX  AND 


his  tool,  he  provoked  the  English  by  setting 
up  French  flags  round  their  territory,  as  if  to 
warn  them  off  from  crossing  Ms  frontier. 
Valeat  qxuintum!  But  is  not  British  sensitive- 
ness here  as  evident  as  French  vanity?  When, 
however,  after  Chunda  Sahib's  fall,  Dupleix 
still  refused  to  recognize  Mahomed  Ali,  affect- 
ed to  give  a  title  to  Mortiz  Ali,  and  at  last  pro- 
duced a  grant  of  the  nawabship  from  the  Sub- 
alidar  to  himself  the  monstrous  assumption  was 
most  readily  accounted  for  by  the  plausible 
theory,  that  the  once  lucky  and  now  desperate 
adventurer  was  the  dupe  of  his  own  extrava- 
gant conceit,  which  goaded  him  on  to  perse- 
vere in  playing  at  kingship  instead  of  "seeing 
things  as  they  were,"  making  peace  and  set- 
tling down  to  his  proper  business  as  the  mana- 
ger of  a  commercial  concern.  And  Labour- 
donnais's  aspersions  fell  in  mth  this  view  of 
his  rival's  besotted  egotism. 

In  spite  of  all  this,  we  believe  the  charge  to 
be  substantially  untrue,  or  at  least  unproved. 
To  analyze  correctly  the  mixed  motives  of 
human  action,  and  to  assign  to  each  motive 
its  relative  strength,  is  never  easy.  But  it  is 
especially  difficult  when  personal  ambition  and 
public  views  are  intertwined;  when  the  indi- 
vidual is  the  prime  mover,  and  throughoul  the 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  77 

ruling  agent,  upon  whose  influence  and  repu- 
tation the  success  of  an  original  and  critical 
policy  is  staked;  and  when  accordingly  the  ex- 
altation of  the  man  is  essential  to  the  execu- 
tion of  his  designs.  That  Dupleix  was  public- 
spirited  in  his  aims,  that  he  was  zealously  de- 
voted to  the  interests  of  the  Company  as  he 
understood  them,  to  the  service  of  the  king 
though  that  king  was  Louis  XV.,  and  to  the 
glory  and  aggrandizement  of  his  countrymen 
however  little  they  understood  him,  we  cannot 
doubt.  How  far  personal  considerations  and 
feeling3  influenced  him;  how  far  his  achieve- 
ments and  his  barbaric  honors  stimulated  his 
vanity,  as  they  no  doubt  flattered  his  self- 
esteem;  how  far  his  personal  claim  to  the 
musnud  was  put  forward  not  only  for  public 
ends,  but  gratify  a  half -orientalized  craving 
for  high  rank  and  swelling  title — must  remain 
uncertain. 

Again,  he  has  been  sneered  at  as  a  physical 
coward;  and  Macaulay  was  not  ashamed  to 
repeat  the  silly  sneer.  That  he  did  not  lead 
armies  in  the  field,  is  true  enough;  his  business 
lay  elsewhere.  But  a  single  incident  which 
occurred  during  the  siege  of  Pondicherry  will 
be  enough  to  clear  up  this  point.  Coming  upon- 
a  group  of  soldiers,  who  were  cowering  be- 


78  DUPLEIX  AND 

fore  a  shell  that  had  just  lighted  among  them, 
he  approached,  but  too  late  to  prevent  the  ex- 
plosion, which,  however,  only  covered  him 
with  dust  and  smoke.  Turning  to  the  men, 
he  remarked  coolly,  Vous  wyez  biefi,  enfantSy 
que  cela  ne  fait  pas  de  iiuil. 

If  the  mature  Governor-General  did  not, 
like  the  young  factor  Clive,  turn  soldier  out- 
right, his  military  capacity  w^as  shown  in  sev- 
eral ways.  He  was  a  great  war  minister. 
His  promptitude,  assiduity,  and  skill  in  mak- 
ing the  most  of  his  scanty  resources  and  poor 
material,  in  organizing  and  equipping  the  va- 
rious departments  of  the  army,  in  improving 
the  discipline  and  tone  of  the  wretched  recruits 
sent  out  from  France,  in  raising  and  training 
sepoy  corps,  in  pushing  on  his  troops  to  the 
scene  of  action,  employing  them  as  effectively 
as  circumstances  permitted,  and  keeping  them 
true,  latterly,  to  a  losing  cause,  will  appear  the 
more  notable  the  more  his  story  is  studied  in 
detail.  Again,  he  w^as  no  mean  master  of  the 
operations  of  war,  both  as  a  strategist  and  as 
a  tactician.  His  insight  was  clear  and  com- 
prehensive; his  suggestions  were  generally  ap- 
posite; his  warnings  too  often  prophetic.  He 
insisted,  from  the  first,  on  the  extreme  impor- 
tance of  reducing  Trichinopoly  and  Gingce, 


THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE.  79 

and  of  the  folly  and  danger  of  the  Tanjore 
diversion.  He  consented  most  reluctantly, 
and  against  his  judgment,  to  the  first  block- 
ade of  Trichinopoly;  and  at  every  stage  of 
that  fatal  enterprise  we  have  seen  hovv^  well  he 
understood  the  requirements  of  the  position, 
and  s  rove  by  wise  orders  to  check  each  ap- 
proach to  the  catastrophe.  In  the  course  of  the 
second  blockade  he  ordered  an  escalade  in  the 
night,  which  very  nearly  succeeded.  After 
Law's  surrender,  he  was  never  strong  enough 
to  besiege  the  city  in  form.  Though  in  his 
last  campaigns  he  was  overmatched  through- 
out, his  sagacious  advice  was  most  serviceable. 
He  recommended  that  pitched  battles  in  the 
open  should  be  avoided;  that  the  spade  should 
be  used  more  than  the  sword;  that  good  posi- 
1,  which  he  carefully  selected  and  pointed 
out,  should  be  occupied,  and  strongly  en- 
trenched with  earthworks.  And  thus  he  was 
able  to  restore  the  confidence  and  supplement 
the  scanty  numbers  of  his  own  army  to  repulse 
-ivith  loss  and  disgrace  to  the  English  a  form- 
idable demonstration  agairst  Gingee,  and  to 
keep  Lawrence  himself  at  bay  and  inactive, 
until  he  was  forced  to  hurry  off  to  the  relief  of 
Trichinopoly,  which  was  again  on  the  verge 
of  surrender  for  want  of  provisions. 


80  DUPLEIX  AND 

Once  more,  Duplcix's  defence  of  Pondi- 
eherry  against  Boscawen  exhibits  his  military 
ability  in  yet  another  light.  The  plan  of  that 
defence  was  his  own,,  the  fruit  (as  we  have 
already  said)  of  his  early  devotion  to  the  study 
of  fortification;  after  Paradis's  death  he  was 
entirely  his  own  engineer:  his  zeal  and  confi- 
dsnce"  sustained  the  spirits,  his  skill  directed 
the  efforts,  of  the  besieged;  and  with  every 
allowance  for  the  awkwardness  of  the  be- 
siegers the  result  seems  to  entitle  him  to 
a  respectable  place  among  military  com- 
manders. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  upon  his  profic- 
iency in  the  diplomatic  department  of  general- 
ship, in  which  he  was  assisted  by  his  wife, 
and  which  enabled  him  to  rescue  Pondicherry, 
to  augment  his  small  army  with  hosts  of  na- 
tive allies,  and  after  Clmnda  Sahib's  death  to 
detach  the  Mysoreans  and  Mahrattas  from 
Mahomed  Ali  and  the  English,  and  with  their 
aid  to  reestablish  the  blockade  of  Trichino- 
poly.  Thus,  under  the  most  serious  and  ac- 
cumulating disadvantages,  he  continued  to 
fight  on,  with  varying  fortune,  unable  to  con- 
quer, but  still  unconquered,  until  he  fell,  not 
by  the  arms  of  his  antagonists  in  India,  but  by 
the  arts  of  his  opponents  in  France,  the  dex- 


THE   mDIAN  EMPIRE.  81 

trous  contrivance  of  the  English  negotiators, 
and  the  crushing  dead -weight  of  a  calamity 
which  he  had  done  all  in  his  power  to  prevent, 
but  of  which  he  was  doomed  to  pay  the  bitter 
penalty. 

Dupleix  was  not  only  a  great  man,  but  in 
many  respects  a  great  statesman.  His  ruling 
idea  of  establishing  European  ascendency,  in 
India,  by  a  combination  of  martial  enterprise 
and  subsidiary  relations  with  native  rulers, 
and  based  partly  on  direct  titular  and  territo- 
rial acquisitions  from  the  Mogul  or  his  depu- 
ties, partly  on  the  indirect  influence  of  the 
resources  of  western  civilization,  operating 
steadily  as  a  sapping  and  transforming  force 
on  the  disintegrated  and  discordant  elements 
of  native  society,  may,  at  the  present  day, 
seem  obvious  and  almost  commonplace.  But 
not  the  less  because  experience  has  since 
proved  that  it  was  a  practicable  one,  was  it  an 
original,  subtle,  and  bold  conception  at  the 
time.  That  Dupleix,  so  lightly  equipped  at 
the  opening  of  his  march,  so  grudgingly  sup- 
ported from  his  remote  French  base,  so  stoutly 
obstructed  by  the  English,  made  such  progress 
on  the  road  to  empire,  and  to  the  last  guarded 
Pondicherry  and  Gingee  intact,  maintained 
the  blockade  of  the  second  capital  of  the  Car- 


82  DUPLEIX  AND 

natic,  kept  Bussy  at  AurungabacI,  and  thereby 
retained  his  influence  over  the  subahdar,  his 
reputation  in  the  Dekkan  as  mayor  of  the 
palace,  and  his  hold  of  the  French  possessions 
in  the  Circars,  is  surely  enough  to  establish  his 
pretensions  to  statesmanship,  judging  even  by 
the  vulgar  test  of  accomplished  results. 

How  much  further  he  might  have  proceeded, 
had  his  heroic  exertions  been  better  sustained 
by  his  countrymen,  and  less  stubbornly  op- 
posed by  the  British,  may  seem  an  idle  ques- 
tion; yet  in  suggesting  it  we  have,  it  appears 
to  us,  touched  the  blot  that  derogates  from  his 
fame  as  a  practical  and  far-seeing  statesman. 
He  had  a  brilliant  imagination,  consummate 
dexterity,  untiring  energy,  an  indomitable  will; 
but  he  seems  to  have  lacked,  as  a  politician, 
what,  paradoxically  enough,  he  so  often  dis- 
played as  a  general — sobriety  of  judgment, 
the  capacity  or  inclination  to  count  the  cost  of 
his  great  undertaking  before  he  entered  on  it, 
and  again  when,  instead  of  making  peace,  he 
persevered  in  it,  regardless  of  the  warnings  of 
experience.  He  knew  that  he  owed  his  ap- 
pointment to  the  improvement  which  he  had 
effected  in  the  Company's  condition  by  a  long 
course  of  peaceful  enterprise. 

He  knew  that  tl*e  directors  were  so  much 


THE  rNDIAN  EMriRE. 


^ 


averse  to  military  cxpeuditure  that,  on  the  eve 
of  war  with  England,  they  prescribed  the  most 
rigid  economy  in  that  respect,  instead  of  send- 
ing reinforcements,  and  constrained  him  to 
fortify  Pondicherry  at  his  own  cost.  He 
knew  that  Madras  had  been  reduced  not  by  a 
regular  armament  from  Europe,  but  by  a  non- 
descript force  extemporized  at  the  Isle  of 
Trance;  that  Pondicherry  had  been  preserved, 
first  by  an  appeal  to  the  Nawab,  afterward  by 
tiie  clumsiness  of  the  besiegers,  and  his  own 
careful  husbanding  of  a  comparatively  small 
army.  This  great  success,  and  the  subsequent 
hesitation  of  ihe  English,  might  indeed  tempt 
him  to  underrate  them,  and  the  danger  of  their 
interference  with  his  designs.  Still  he  knew 
well  what  Englishmen  had  been  in  the  past, 
and  might  again  show  themselves— to  his  peril. 
He  also  knew  well  the  intensity  and  sensitive- 
ness of  their  commercial  jealousy,  the  precari- 
ousness  of  native  alliances,  the  uncertainties 
of  war,  the  certainty  that  his  policy  of  inter- 
vention, if  tolerated  by  his  employers  for  a 
while  in  a  single  case  and  in  the  full  tide  of 
startling  success,  would  be  disapproved  as  a 
general  scheme,  and  in  the  case  that  had  al- 
ready occurred  would  be  liable  to  condemna- 
tion on  the  first  reverse,  and  to  faint  support 


84  DUPLEIX  AND 

in  the  interval.  After  Clive's  rise  and 
Lawrence's  return  to  India,  there  could  be  no 
mistake  as  to  the  seriousness  and  potency  of  the 
English  opposition.  Law's  disaster,  so  great 
in  itself,  so  ominous  in  every  way,  was  sure  to 
be  regarded  as  the  fatal  outcome  of  Dupleix's 
temerity.  WJiether,  had  he  recalled  Bussy  to 
the  Oarnatic,  and  through  him  even  s  cceeded 
in  storming  Trichinopoly,  he  could  have  re- 
covered his  ground,  and  concluded  a  favorable 
peace,  seems  doubtful;  and  not  less  so,  whether 
the  authorities  in  France  would,  after  such  a 
disaster,  have  allowed  time  for  working  out 
such  a  programme. 

But  Dupleix  did  not  recall  Bussy.  The 
collapse  in  the  Carnatic  made  him  cling  all 
the  more  tenaciously  to  the  Dekkan  His 
*  'system"  was  at  stake.  The  death  of  Chunda 
Sahib  was  an  additional  reason  for  adhering  to 
the  subahdar.  The  political  legitimacy  of 
Dupleix's  attitude  as  a  belligerent  now  de- 
pended entirely  on  Salabat  Jung's  sanction. 
He  hoped  also  to  receive  material  support  from 
him,  which  was  prevented  by  circumstances 
upon  which  we  must  not  now  enter,  but  which 
Dupleix  ought  to  have  taken  into  account. 
Yet  without  Bussy's  help,  without  a  single 
able  officer,  practically  almost  without  an  army 


THE  INDIAN  EMPFRB.  85 

of  his  own,  and  in  desperate  dependence  on 
doubtful  and  treacherous  native  alliances,  he 
neglected  to  make  peace  and  thereby  com- 
mitted himself  anew  to  a  most  precarious  con- 
test, which  if  not  promptly  and  successfully 
ended,  he  must  have  been  w^ell  aware,  would 
in  one  way  or  another  be  his  undoing.  Such 
is  hardly  the  conduct  of  a  practical  statesman. 
And,  on  the  whole,  the  old  estimate  of  Dupliex 
as  a  brilliant  visionary;  does  not  seem  to  be 
far  from  the  truth;  not,  however,  because  he 
dreamed  of  what  was  impracticable  in  itself, 
but  because  he  refused  to  discern  the  signs  of 
the  times,  and  to  recognize  the  fact  that  what 
he  coveted  was,  in  his  actual  circumstances, 
beyond  his  reach.  And  we,  who  have  since 
settled  down  in  the  promised  land  of  his  as- 
pirations, ought  to  be  the  first  to  admit  the 
great  qualities,  to  speak  gently  of  the  defects, 
and  to  commiserate  the  misfortunes  of  the  pro- 
phet, who  impelled  us  to  enter  in  and  possess 
it. 


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